A local high school senior is well on her way to her dream career thanks to the Gates Foundation scholarship.

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Breona Alexander has already accomplished a lot in life. Four years ago, when she started at Anacostia High School, she was reading far behind her grade level and had been diagnosed with a learning disability.

Alexander is now second in her class and has received a gift only 1,000 students across the country have earned - The Bill and Melinda Gates Scholarship.

"I had to applied to so many other scholarships, and I was concerned about how I was going to pay for my tuition for the next four years, not just for one year," Alexander said.

She won't have to worry about that now.

The Gates Scholarship will pay for her college education through the highest level she chooses to pursue.

Alexander wants to become a veterinarian. Her winning series of essays spoke of her love for learning and volunteer work with  shelter animals and the homeless.

She says when she learned she'd won, she screamed.

"My mother, she was downstairs in the basement and was wondering what was wrong...," Alexander explained. "I told her I got the Gates Scholarship, and she started screaming with me."

This is the second year in a row an Anacostia student has won the scholarship.

According to her teachers, it's an accomplishment Alexander has earned.

This summer, Alexander will get to meet Bill and Melinda Gates, as well as her fellow scholars.

She will start at George Mason University in the fall.