By GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer

High school valedictorians in Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts might — or might not — have gained admission to the colleges they wanted, but more than ever, money played a factor in the offers they accepted.

Laura Carberry, the valedictorian at Case High School in Swansea, parlayed her academic record and extracurricular experiences into a full ride at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Carberry, who has an eye on a career in engineering, also got acceptance letters from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

But she couldn’t walk away from the financial package at UMass Dartmouth, which she said has the best engineering program in the Massachusetts state university system.

After four years of college, “you can easily come out with $100,000 in loans,” she said.

“It’s like paying for a house but not getting the house,” Carberry said.

In a year of skyrocketing tuition costs and a record-breaking number of college applications, Carberry and other valedictorians have discovered that the competition for scholarship money mattered as much as the number of acceptance letters they received.

Melanie Pavao, valedictorian at Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River and the daughter of Portuguese immigrants, had her sights set on New York University, which sent a fat envelope with a welcome letter in it.

But Providence College sent Pavao the same letter and a financial offer she could not refuse — full tuition, which will be worth at least $125,000 over the next four years.

After a visit to the PC campus — which she loved — Pavao was sold, she said with a big smile.

The prestigious University of Virginia, which is particularly competitive for out-of-state applicants, said “yes” to Nicholas Audette, valedictorian at Exeter-West Greenwich High School, and Molly Beauchemin, valedictorian at Seekonk High.

UVA offered some aid to both Audette and Beauchemin to help defray more than $40,000 in costs in the next academic year.

Audette concluded he could not afford to attend UVA, especially since the University of Delaware offered him full tuition, room and board.

Both Delaware and UVA have good programs in biochemistry, he said. Audette sees himself as a future researcher, possibly in the burgeoning field of genetics.

Beauchemin, meanwhile, says she is extremely fortunate to be able to accept UVA’s offer, thanks to scholarships from several sources which have “essentially taken care of the first two years of school.” She said she can apply to renew the scholarships for the final two years.

Tipping the balance toward UVA was a $30,000 award from the Henry David Thoreau Foundation, available only to Massachusetts residents, to pursue environmental studies, Beauchemin said.

With a little shudder, she said she has friends whose parents have said “absolutely no” to their school choice because of the cost.

Money has always been an issue among urban high school students applying to college. At least two valedictorians in Providence high schools — Ana de Pina and Dianny Pena — both from immigrant families, have parlayed their hard work into scholarships that will pay all — or nearly all — of their expenses for the next four years.

They credited dedicated teachers at Hope High for helping them navigate the thicket of college applications and financial aid.

De Pina, the valedictorian of Hope High’s Technology Academy, got scholarships for tuition, room and board at Providence College, where she was accepted in the honors program.

Dianny Pena, valedictorian of Hope’s Arts Academy, will attend Mount Holyoke College, with financial aid that takes care of all but a few thousand dollars a year.

They both plan to be doctors.

The medical field is the best way to combine her interest in math and science with a desire to help people, Pena said.

De Pina said, “So many people have reached out to me.” Medicine would be “a way of me giving back.”

In an exceptionally competitive year for college applications, many valedictorians gained an edge by combining outstanding academic records with rich experiences outside the classroom during their high school careers, ones that made them stand out as individuals to college admissions officers.

Carberry, the Case High valedictorian from Swansea, was the yearbook editor, secretary of the National Honor Society, vice president of the Student Council and a member of the spring and winter track teams for four years.

She said she and her friends have joked that their schedules were so full of classes and activities that they “waited to graduate before we slept.”

“I’m happy to have graduated, so now I can sleep,” she said.

Audette, the would-be genetics researcher from West Greenwich, worked as an intern last summer at a nonprofit organization in northeast Washington, D.C., designing a course to teach middle school students how to use the computer as a resource to write resumes, papers and do research.

Audette also served as captain of his school’s baseball team, president of a tutoring organization, first saxophonist in two school bands and a co-founder of his school’s first recycling effort.

He said, “You have to go out and do a lot of different things to give yourself the experiences to become an interesting and knowledgeable person.”

Like Audette, Beauchemin helped start a recycling program at her high school in Seekonk. She conducted independent environmental research which she presented to school and town officials, gaining insight into the political process.

On her college essays, Beauchemin wrote about the way athletics and music helped increase her self-awareness and helped her define the values important to her.

“When you come to terms with who you are as a person, you get the most out of life,” she said.

gmacris@projo.com