Else Drooff Valenzuela

High School Graduation Year: 2014
Year First Awarded the Carson Scholarship: 2006
Sponsored by: Costco Wholesale

Else Drooff Valenzuela is a 5-time Carson Scholar, first awarded the scholarship in 2006. In 2013, Else served as the student member of the Anne Arundel County Board of Education—at the time, the only student in the nation with full voting rights on a local school board.

Else graduated cum laude from Dartmouth College in 2018 with a B.A. in Geography. At Dartmouth, Else received the Dean & Chaplain’s Award, the Student Legacy Award and the Student Life Excellence Award. In 2024, Else earned her M.A. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and her MBA from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.

Prior to graduate school, Else worked for the Santa Fe Dreamers Project (now Contigo Immigrant Justice), an immigration nonprofit in Santa Fe, NM dedicated to providing free and low-cost legal services and representation to immigrants. Today, Else serves as an Enrollment Growth Consultant for Rize Education, partnering with small colleges and universities to develop and launch high-demand academic programs. She lives in Dallas, TX, with her husband, nephew and two cats. Else is an avid CrossFit athlete and spends her free time working with The Migration Opportunity.

We asked Else what advice she would give to our current scholars and she shared, “My advice to current scholars is to build their identity around their character versus their credentials.”