Nettie Morse focuses on a future in pediatric occupational therapy
Aneta “Nettie” Morse is a senior at Oxbow High School in Bradford, Vermont. She’s a three-season athlete and is one of the founding members of VSAC GEAR UP Leads, the first-ever student-led leadership club in VSAC’s GEAR UP, a federally funded program that helps students access college and careers after high school.
Recently, Nettie was named the national GEAR UP Student Leader of the Year at an award ceremony in Washington DC. This award recognizes a student who goes above and beyond for their GEAR UP program, encourages other students to get involved in college and career readiness, and embodies the change they want to see in the world. The award includes a $2,500 scholarship.
“I spent most of last year doing outreach and trying to build the program up to help more students,” Nettie said. “We started with SAT workshops and were able to tour a college in New York. This year I’m continuing outreach to make sure teachers and students get involved and that we’re able to help more Oxbow students.”
Working with her VSAC GEAR UP outreach counselor, Kassidy, to prepare her college applications
Nettie herself has benefited from the GEAR UP program. She’s working with her VSAC GEAR UP outreach counselor, Kassidy Moore, on her college applications and financial aid paperwork.
“Kassidy just knows everything,” Nettie laughed. “When I first started working with her, I was really not sure where I wanted to go. I knew I wanted to do pediatric occupational therapy (OT), but I didn’t have a sense of where I wanted to go to school. At that point, all I knew is that I needed financial aid to get there.”
Kassidy stepped up to the plate for Nettie, introducing her to programs like QuestBridge, which helps connect high-achieving and modest-income students with admissions opportunities. Nettie was named a Junior College Prep Scholar by QuestBridge, one of only 4,000 students across the country to achieve that distinction. With that came additional help for her senior applications, including SAT review, more counseling, and more educational sessions.
Nettie is submitting her final QuestBridge applications and is nervous but excited to get the college application process underway. QuestBridge features a mutual selection process, where students rank schools and schools rank students. If a student is “matched” for admission through the process, the partner school pays for tuition, housing, and more. Nettie’s hopeful that her odds are good.
As she worked on her applications, Nettie leaned on Kassidy for help. “Sometimes I don't know what to write for an essay or a prompt, so she will ask me a bunch of questions and we’ll look at the answers together and edit them and put them together into something comprehensive. She’s helping me figure out how to list my activities in the right order, so that I’m communicating what’s important about those activities to the colleges,” Nettie described.
Pediatric occupational therapy is Nettie’s top interest
Nettie is prioritizing schools with good pediatric OT programs that are also close enough to home that she’s within driving distance.
“I found pediatric OT scrolling one day,” she noted. “It seems to fit a lot of what I’m good at and what I want to do. I love kids, and childhood is one of the most important times of someone's life and getting kids the help they need is so important.”
She added, “I saw a collage of photos of someone playing with kids on mats, blocks, swings, and what the OT was doing with the kids working on sensory and motion and skills. I kept going, diving deeper and looking more and it was just so cool to me.”
Nettie shared that she would be both “honored and really excited and grateful to have that opportunity and to play that role in someone's life.”
Mentoring and making a difference
Given Nettie’s track record, it’s not surprising that she wants to make an impact on the lives of others, especially kids.
In her free time, she volunteers for ENGin, a nonprofit that pairs volunteers like Nettie with Ukrainian citizens to help them learn English. Nettie enjoys it because her mentee is close to her age. She spends an hour each weekend with her, and she says it's unlike anything else in her life.
Nettie is also involved in National Honor Society and student council at Oxbow. She plays soccer and does both indoor and outdoor track and field. She also works with the school’s IT department and interns at UP for Learning on their Vermont Student Advisory Council. With all of this on her plate, Nettie has meetings every day in addition to school. She wouldn’t have it any other way.
She lives with her dad, grandparents, and two older brothers. One of her brothers did two years of community college online, and the other is a sophomore at Dartmouth College. Nettie is inspired by both of them, and the hard work of her dad. Soon she’ll finish up her applications and her financial aid paperwork. As her future unfolds, Nettie is sure to make an impact!
