The Solana Beach Civic and Historical Society recently announced their scholarship winners for 2025. Allisa Berber, Ava Hsueh, and Julia Snider are the winners for this school year. They were honored on June 12 at a celebration dinner at Tony’s Jacal in Solana Beach, according to a news release. Julia Snider was unable to attend.
Allisa Berber will attend California State University Northridge after earning a 3.7 grade point average at Torrey Pines High School, where she took several Advanced Placement classes as well as Japanese. Allisa also played on the school’s Junior Varsity basketball team, where she earned the Falcon Award for sportsmanship and a Most Valuable Player distinction. Earlier this year, she traveled to Sacramento to see the state legislature in action and received a California Legislature Assembly Certificate of Recognition.
In 2024 and 2025, Allisa was named a “Youth of the Year” at the Boys & Girls Club, which she attended from kindergarten through her freshman year. The club was a safe haven for her and her three younger siblings, whom she cared for while her mother — a single parent of five — worked day and night jobs, the news release stated.
“I had to mature very quickly,” she wrote in her application essay. “I had to . . . focus on feeding my siblings and making sure they were safe at home.”
Because of family difficulties growing up, home was a car, a hotel, or “wherever we could find a bed.” After the family got back into their own apartment, “the love and support I received from the Boys & Girls Club helped me regain my confidence,” Allisa wrote. She became an employee of the club in 2022. “I realized that with perseverance, no goal is too big or too far out of reach. . . I now know that, with time, effort and determination, I can achieve anything I set my mind on.”
Scholarship winner Ava Hsueh
(Lydia Ly)
Ava Hsueh was a straight A student at Canyon Crest Academy, graduating with a 4.46 grade point average. She plans to attend the University of California Los Angeles to study neuroscience with the aim of finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease.
“I am very interested in studying and researching Alzheimer’s disease because my grandma has been diagnosed with it. Witnessing the disease’s tragic impacts firsthand [is] driving my desire to understand and combat this devastating disease,” she wrote in her application essay.
In addition to playing on her high school badminton team, Ava’s extracurricular activities have included an Alzheimer’s fundraising club at Canyon Crest Academy and founding a student chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association of San Diego. She has volunteered and tutored with Casa de Amistad, as well as two church groups.
As a participant in the Outreach Program for Advanced Learning in STEM at UCSD she explored Alzheimer’s disease in the hippocampal cells in mice and presented her findings at the Biomedical Engineering Society Conference. The College Board recognized Ava as an AP Scholar with Distinction and she is a National Merit Commended finalist, the news release stated.
Scholarship winner Julia Snider
(Joseph Snider)
Julia Snider remembers that her middle school friends “dragged me to the first meeting of my high school’s competitive robotics club,” where she was “intimidated by the club’s sea of scary senior boys. . .”, the news release stated.
She got over it. “Having other women there gave me the motivation to participate,” Julia wrote in her application essay. More than just participate. As a senior at San Dieguito Academy, she is a “drive coach” and head designer for the robotics team, with leadership roles in both strategy and engineering.
“I never would have become this involved in the team if not for the women who welcomed me, mentored me and taught me to be a leader.” Julia has participated in several robotics competitions and also judges a Lego League Qualifying Tournament for elementary school robotics teams. She earned straight As and a 4.40 grade point average, while also swimming for San Dieguito Academy’s junior varsity team and tutoring at Kumon.
She founded and is co-president of the Footloose Fridays Line Dancing Club and also served as a group leader with the San Dieguito Academy committee for the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). In this role, she helped lead a group of students and staff in developing a six-year action plan for the school.
A life-long resident of Solana Beach, Julia remembers learning about the city’s history when she visited its Heritage Museum and found her neighbor, Kathalijn Nelson, churning ice cream for the student visitors. Julia will attend the University of California, Santa Barbara, the news release stated.