Alex, center, and friends Arielle LaBrecque, left, and Greg Foakes share a lighter moment during their AP English Literature class, at Stoney Creek High School in Rochester Hills, Mich., last month.

Detroit Free Press / Patrica Beck

DETROIT, Mich. — A 17-year-old ward of the state sat at a computer in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., writing the most important letter of his life. It was a sales pitch to 30 prospective foster-care parents in the Rochester Hills, Mich., area. He was begging for a place to live. Begging for a chance to follow his dreams. “I’m sure you’ve never received a letter of this nature before, and I’m also quite sure you will be surprised, albeit unpleasantly, at the circumstances under which I am writing this letter.”

His father left the country when he was a toddler, he explained. His mother’s parental rights were terminated.

“My name is Alex, and I am a junior, soon to be senior, at Stoney Creek High School in Rochester Hills. I found your name and contact information after quite a bit of rigorous searching.…”

An honor roll student, Alex wanted to graduate from Stoney Creek and go to Harvard. Or Columbia. Or Stanford. Or New York University. Or the University of Michigan. But he had a problem. After bouncing through eight foster placements, he was sent to live at Children’s Home of Detroit in Grosse Pointe Woods. He was afraid that he would have to change schools for the third time in four years. Stoney Creek. meant everything to him. It was more than a building; it was his home. The teachers and counselors and students and secretaries and principal at Stoney Creek had become his family.It is highly unusual for a child to do his own research to try to find a foster parent, but everything about Alex is unusual.

He has a 3.95 grade-point average on a 4-point scale and is on track to become a National Merit Scholar. He nearly aced two of the standard college aptitude tests. “My parents divorced when I was 2 years old, and I have not heard from my father since.”

Alex was born in Romania. As an infant, he moved to the United States with his mother and father. “He ended up getting deported back to Romania and I haven’t heard from him since,” Alex said of his dad. “I don’t even remember him.”

Alex’s mother earned a doctorate in computer-science engineering and started teaching at a local university.

“She was a really good parent,” Alex said. “She would take time to not just help me with my homework but teach me the next chapter and the next chapter after that.

“My mother was a nurturing and loving person, to which I credit my early start on a path of academics until she suffered a closed-head injury from a car accident and developed bipolar disorder.”

Alex said that after the accident, his mother changed. They fought constantly. He was first removed from his mother’s custody in 2001.

“I was removed from her multiple times and placed in foster care only to be returned to her when she returned to temporary stability.”

One time, when he was in the eighth grade, his mother went through a “spell,” as Alex calls them. They lost their home.

“I went back to the apartment and found all my stuff scattered across the lawn.”

He was taken in for a short time by the principal at a Bloomfield Hills, Mich., middle school. It was one example of countless times that Oakland County, Mich., school administrators, counselors and teachers went out of their way to give Alex a safety net.

“I was relieved to have someplace to go home to,” Alex said. “I gathered up as much stuff as I could into a van. It was a really sad day, but it was pretty moving, too. A bunch of my teachers and neighbors helped me move my stuff into a van and gather everything up.”

His mother’s parental rights were terminated last year. Alex developed a rubber soul, able to bounce back from anything. “I’m a good kid with no criminal or negative behavior record, but more visibly I am an excellent student. ... My most fervent dream is to be accepted to an Ivy League school, and I actually have the intellectual and emotional capacity to do so.”

Alex has built relationships with many people at Stoney Creek. For his birthday last year, school secretaries got him a cake. “Alex is one of our favorites, a star,” said principal Dan Hickey. “We’ve worked really hard with him.”

Colette Judge has been Alex’s counselor since his freshman year. She saw a bright student with potential, who needed some tender, loving care. “This is his home,” Judge said. “This is the only constant that he’s had. I’m a mom and I treat him like one of my kids.”

“Truly all I need is someplace to stay, even if I have to pay a couple hundred dollars a month in rent, for the 2008-2009 school year.”

During the summer, a new family came forward. Alex moved in one day before school started and is now finishing his final year at the school he loves.

Suzanne, his foster mother, said Alex is a “caring, very bright, responsible young man, very talented and very gifted.”

She said he represents hope and inspiration.

Alex wants to major in political science or economics with an emphasis on environmental policy. Then again, he might work in foster care.

“I want to do something meaningful,” Alex said. “I want to improve quality of life for people, and I want to do it on a large scale.”

He said he has been accepted into the Honors Program at the University of Michigan, but he’s still waiting to hear from Columbia and Harvard.