Inspiration
Girl Born In Prison Set To Attend Harvard To Study Law
Sky Castner, 18, was born in Galveston County Prison due to her mother’s incarceration.
The girl from Montgomery County, Texas, has defied the odds and secured a place at Harvard University. Sky Castner’s journey started in challenging circumstances as she was born inside Galveston Country Prison while her mother was serving time. Her father became the caregiver, raising her as a single parent. But despite the tumultuous start, Castner, 18, has ranked third in her graduating class at Conroe High School, North of Houston.
Castner might have been born in prison, but this isn’t going to prevent her from achieving the dream of studying law at Harvard, where she will begin in the coming fall.
‘I was born in prison,’ says the first line of her Harvard application letter, which she reportedly worked with a professor at Boston University to write. Speaking of the Professor, Castner told Houston Chronicle, ‘He helped me to tell my story in the best way possible.’ She also credited her mentor Mona Hamby, who is not associated with the school, for her success. They met when Castner was in elementary school at Reaves Elementary School.
The young teen is described as an enthusiastic reader and staff, including Hamby [pictured], believed she’d benefit from CISD’s Project Mentor program, where children in need of love get paired with an adult to help care for and mentor them.
‘I was given a paper about her. Her hero was Rosa Parks, her favorite food was tacos from Dairy Queen and she loved to read. I thought this sounds like a bright little girl,’ Hamby told the Houston Chronicle. ‘I still have that paper today. She told me: “I’ve been to jail.” I said: “No, that can’t be right. I knew that I can’t just go eat lunch with this kid once a week, she needed more.’
Castner appears countless times on Hamby’s Facebook page and the mentor often praises the teen and how proud she was.
As per a post shared on Hamby’s Instagram in April, the teen not only succeeded in gaining a place at Harvard but will also attend the prestigious Ivy League school on a full scholarship. ‘Girl set a goal to go to Harvard in elementary school despite being born in poverty. Received full scholarship to attend Harvard in 2023,’ Hamby wrote while sharing an image of her mentee. Hamby was present when Castner got glasses and needed a haircut, and even took her to tour Harvard’s campus. Following the trip, she saw her love for the school intensify.
‘It was a very different environment than I grew up in and that’s not a bad thing,’ Castner told the Chronicle. ‘Everything that Mona taught me was very valuable in the same way that everything that I went through before Mona was very valuable.’ She indeed worked hard to achieve all A’s and enrolled in the Academy for Health and Science Professions at Conroe High School to prepare to go to the prestigious university.
Allegedly, Castner has only spoken to her birth mother on one occasion, when she was 14. And a post on the Conroe ISD Education Foundation’s Facebook page says that Castner’s father suffers from bipolar disorder.
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