Abandoned by Her Parents and once Labeled a High School Dropout, Girl Receives Scholarship from Harvard

'If there is anybody at all who has a dream,' Ms Loggins told WBTV, 'then they can definitely make it happen. There are no excuses. It depends on you and no one else.'

'And I just made a decision that I was not going to end up like my parents. I wasn't going to end up having to decide should I buy food this month or should I pay my rent.'

Two questions:

• Is this successful young woman the "anti-Julia"?
• Can the human spirit be measured by governmental data sets?

h/t Ann Althouse

**Updated: 

Here is more information on Dawn Loggins' journey from shelbystar.com.

Listen to an interview from the reporter who broke the story here.  

Here is a comment on the shelbystar.com site from Dawn's sister via Facebook:

Alexis Sweazy

Also, to add to this story, Dad knows, I wrote him a letter right after she called me and told me. But, I agree with my big sister. My mom didn't contribute to any of this, she was the one that went to Tennessee with Dad and didn't come back until my birthday party, without telling anyone she was staying. It turns out, they were living in a tent in Tennessee, I talked to her maybe once. I've always lived with my dad's parents, so I've had a steady home, but my sister, she's never had that. I kept track of all the times they have moved since I was six years old. 12 times in six years, most of the time I didn't see them once a month even, maybe once every 2 or 3, if I was lucky. As I got older, their homes got worse and worse living conditions. When they were living in one of their houses, Dawn slept in the basement. Christmas eve, the basement started to flood, and Ash had to move all of her things that might get damaged. I said all this to say this. As you can tell from Dawn's story, you can do anything you put your mind to, Dawn has been trying to get that point across to me and Kiley for a while now. When you think you've got it bad, think that other people have it worse. Also think that if Dawn can do this, you can face your everyday life and overcome it. And think of all the blessings you have been given that other people might not have been given.