College Decision Day: How these Long Island students picked their future schools

This Friday, high schoolers across the country will make one of the most pivotal choices of their young lives.

Known as College Decision Day, May 1 marks the deadline for many students to commit to the colleges they plan to attend in the fall. The yearly tradition is often marked with high school seniors attending class in clothing from their future alma mater.

Newsday spoke with six teens from across Long Island about the colleges they chose and how they made their selection. Their responses varied, from affordability to academics, but all expressed optimism for the future.

Here are their stories:

When Vasyl Datsyuk visited the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta, he said he fell in love with the city's green spaces, shops and overall walkability. The college's high educational standards also impressed him. 

"It’s a very good school," he said. "Very rigorous in academics, which is what I was looking for."

Another major factor that drove his decision, he said, was the university's co-op program, in which students gain work experience related to their major by alternating between full-time study and at least three semesters of full-time paid work.

Datsyuk said Georgia Tech offered him an $88,000 scholarship over four years. He has applied for other scholarships and financial opportunities for engineering students.

Georgia Tech tuition for out-of-state students is around $54,286 annually, according to the institution’s website.

"I’ve definitely taken the opportunity to apply to as many scholarships and try to get as much money for myself as possible because college is very expensive," Datsyuk said.

The teen, who plans to study aerospace engineering, has participated in his school's science research program and recently presented some of his findings at a plant and animal genome conference in San Diego.

Datsyuk is also a member of the school’s thespian society and science Olympiad, and plays in the jazz band.

When it was time to apply to college, Olukemi Akingbade said she only applied to three state schools.

Akingbade knew she wanted to remain in New York, but not on Long Island. She wanted a diverse, tight-knit community like the one she knew in Hempstead, and she wanted a school that prioritized public health education, she said.

"I thought I'd be able to come back and give back to my community, and kind of represent them and be able to alleviate some of the issues that plague the communities here," she said of her chosen field of study.

Affordability was top of mind as well.

While tuition for University at Albany is about $7,000 per year, additional fees along with room and board pushed the price tag to about $28,000. Akingbade said financial aid helped lower the cost to about $16,000.

At Hempstead High, Akingbade said she was a member of the school's bowling and badminton teams. She was part of the National Honor Society and the school's creative photography club.

As she looks forward to her next chapter, she credits her father, Olukunle Akingbade, who is originally from Nigeria, for inspiring her to seek independence in Albany.

"I thought that it would be necessary for me, not only in my educational journey but also in my personal growth journey, to expand my viewpoint outside of Long Island," she said.

Katherine Abrams cast a wide net in her search for a college, applying to 20 schools.

Ultimately, the choice came down to two: Adelphi University in Garden City and the University of Miami. The Florida school offered her a $50,000 scholarship. Adelphi, where tuition is upward of $52,000 annually, offered her nearly a full ride, she said.

The additional costs she would have had to pay for room and board at the University of Miami were the deciding factor.

"This was just the best decision for me and my family to be able to support them, support myself and get an education at a reasonable cost, so I won’t have to live in student loan debt," Abrams said.

The senior said she was also enticed by a program at Adelphi that allows eligible students to complete their fourth year at New York University's College of Dentistry before being admitted into their dental program.

Abrams said she hopes to follow in the footsteps of her mother, Elizabeth, who is a dentist with her own practice.

"I go and shadow her a lot," she said. "I get to see her lifestyle, what her every day is like and that appeals to me a lot. I truly feel like think I found my passion in that."

Ever since Genry Salvador Sorto was a child, he has enjoyed taking things apart to learn how they work.

"I was always more interested in how something came to be and how it worked together rather than what it became," he said.

As he got older, he noticed he had a flair for design as well.

Salvador Sorto is a member of his school's stage crew, where he was the creative design lead for its production of "Little Shop of Horrors" earlier this year. He was tasked with designing a carnivorous plant for the musical.

His goal is to work for the Walt Disney Imagineering team, which is "the creative force behind Disney parks, attractions, and resorts, blending art, technology, and storytelling," according to Disney's website. He said he wants to work on movies, specifically in practical effects — special effects made physically, like puppets or animatronics.

"I want to design these machines to work and bring them into reality," he said. 

After applying to almost 20 colleges, Salvador Sorto found out his first choice — New York University — had accepted him. He said he picked the school for its rigorous academics and connections to the entertainment industry.

Salvador Sorto, whose parents came to the United States from El Salvador, said getting into his first choice university is a dream come true for him and his family.

"It's me doing what I have to do to make their dream of me going to college come true," he said.

One of the biggest challenges Arsen Hrabko faced when his family came to the United States from Ukraine was learning English, he said.

"The way you learn the English language is speaking it, speaking it with other people, making connections and learning the material," he said.

Four years later, Hrabko is at the top of his graduating class, having been named salutatorian. He is a member of the school's math club and plays an active role in the newspaper.

Hrabko has committed to attending Stony Brook University in the fall.

He said the cost of attending the college, where in-state tuition is $7,070, played a factor in his decision. 

He also appreciated the academic opportunities offered at the school.

Hrabko said he originally wanted to study programming but switched to electrical engineering because of concerns about the impact of artificial intelligence on jobs in computer science.

He said he would like to learn more about working on small devices like phones and watches.

"I really enjoy making small projects, like from 5 voltage to 12 voltage," Hrabko said.

Natalee Cortina said she developed a passion for the arts in elementary school. As a high school student, she has been a member of her school’s chorus and band, where she plays the flute. She also participates in the school’s plays and musicals.

"It’s been my entire life," she said.

But when she took an AP physics course, she said she found a new passion.

"I love how ... intuitive it is," she said. "I can actually apply it to the real world, and it helps me understand things."

Cortina is part of her school's Women in Science and Engineering program, which gives participants a chance to learn from Stony Brook University students.

Cortina said she applied to about a dozen colleges, with a focus on theater. In addition to writing essays, some schools required her to submit audition tapes, she said.

As she narrowed down her choices, Northwestern University's friendly and welcoming campus interested her, she said. The Illinois school's concentration in theater and its academic flexibility were also appealing.

"I didn’t want to fully commit to one field of study because I’m passionate about multiple things," Cortina said.