MISSION, Texas - Mission native Samuel “Sam” Garcia has become one of the youngest Hispanic faculty members at Harvard Law School.
The former Sharyland Rattler is a graduate of the Business Honors Program at the University of Texas at Austin, and Harvard Law School. He is now a partner at a venture capital fund called Amplo.
In an exclusive interview with KRGV TV’s weekend news anchor, Bella Michaels, Garcia gave advice on how Rio Grande Valley school students can make it to Harvard. He said South Texas College can play a big part.
“Like, you know, you're in high school. You hear about Harvard Law School. You want to go, but like, how do you get there?” Garcia told Michaels.
“I was really fortunate to have an older brother, my brother Ricco, who was so, so, so generous, and so, so, so good about telling me….
“So he's four years older than me. He was at UT at the time, telling me about all the things I needed to do to get into Harvard Law School and working backwards from there.”
Garcia took his older brother’s advice.
“So I was in high school. How could you do something to help your bid to Harvard Law School, six, seven years later? Well, it turns out you can start right now in high school with dual credit courses,” Garcia told Michaels.
“So dual credit courses are important for a number of reasons. One, they're more rigorous, but two, and most importantly, they count towards what's called an LSAC GPA.”
LSAC stands for Law School Admission Council. GPA stands for Grade Point Average.
“So LSAT GPAs are all the college courses you've ever taken rolled into one GPA. That includes STC and that includes UTRGV, if you're taking those dual credit courses. They roll in and count just as much as that course at UT that, like, totally killed you,” Garcia told Michaels.
“So my brother was, like, load up on those courses. You don't want to take them at UT with, like, 400 students, you know. You want to take them at STC where you have, like, a one to 10 student ratio. So I did. I loaded up on those courses, you know, got a great GPA at STC rolled all those into my LSAT GPA as I went to UT and that was actually a huge part of my success.”
Garcia spoke about the importance STC played in his education for a feature the college published in 2019. The feature, written by STC public relations specialist Joey Gomez, included this passage:
“Shortly before starting his undergraduate studies at the University of Texas in Austin, Samuel said he endured a hard time when his father passed away. His family, which included his mother Irma and his brother Ricco, were left picking up the pieces and trying to formulate the best plan for college.
“Entering South Texas College was the answer, he said. A former dual enrollment student, Samuel says STC enabled him to get ahead of the curve and adjust to college work while still being in a small classroom setting.
“Years later and now a best-selling author, political columnist, and soon-to-be graduate from Harvard Law, Samuel credits STC with laying the foundation for his success.
“Taking courses as a dual enrollment student saved him thousands. A summer semester's worth of tuition and textbook costs, which were usually included in high school classes for about four or five classes at the time ran anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000, he said.”
Gomez’s article quoted Garcia as saying: “Right before I went to undergrad my father passed away and we were pretty short on money. Had I not been enrolled as a dual student I would have likely had to take a number of summer classes at UT my sophomore or junior year, which would have probably ran me thousands of dollars alone.”
The feature said STC collaborates with 23 school districts and 78 high schools across the Valley to offer the Dual Credit Programs. It said the programs are supported by more than 200 college faculty and over 300 dual credit faculty across Hidalgo and Starr Counties.
“To date, Dual Credit Programs at STC have served over 106,300 dual credit students like Samuel and awarded over 9,800 certificate and/or associate degrees,” the feature stated.
“There are actually things that happen strategically when you take classes at STC,” Garcia said, in the STC article. “I could go into things I thought were interesting, and it allowed me to explore my future career as a lawyer. These were all luxuries that were afforded to me because I took classes at STC.”
The STC feature added: “A native of the Rio Grande Valley, Samuel attended STC from 2011 to 2012 as a dual enrollment student and took summer classes before he attended UT. Within one year at UT, Sammy said he entered the university’s Business Honors Program and then graduated from UT’s McCombs Business School before entering Harvard.”
Garcia will be teaching a law class at Harvard in the Spring.
Garcia wrote a book back in 2015 titled “How Goats Can Fight Poverty.” He penned a guest column for the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service back then about the book. Click here to read it.
He has also written pieces on immigration for Slate, The New York Times, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, Tallahassee Democrat, Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, El Paso Times, Laredo Morning Times, San Antonio Express, Austin American Statesman, and the Texas Tribune.
Between 2018 and 2019 he wrote four articles for Forbes Magazine. Click here to read them.
