The regular high school route just wasn’t working for Vincent Varallo, writes Mark Zimmaro for South Philly Review.

Varallo suffered from anxiety before the pandemic and the shutdown made it worse.

“Prior to, and especially during the pandemic, I didn’t feel my brick-and-mortar school was allowing me to be myself and reach my full educational potential,” Varallo said.

So instead of regular virtual high school classes during the lockdown, he enrolled for remote learning at Agora Cyber Charter School in King of Prussia.

He found he was able to prosper at Agora, as he improved his academic career and gained more responsibilities.

“At the beginning, everyone questioned our decision,” said Varallo’s father Joseph. “ ‘Just get through the last year and a half,’ they said. But after a while people saw the change in Vincent.

He earned his diploma June 2 with the highest grade point average among 596 students across the state.

That got him a full scholarship to attend Neumann University in the fall, where he will study cyber security.  

His plan is to work cyber security for a private company, looking for system flaws that he can improve.

Read more at South Philly Review about Vincent Varallo and his journey to Neumann University.