BENICIA — Phil Salazar had a tough choice to make: Stay in California or go across the country for school.
In the end, the Benicia High School valedictorian picked the Bay Area — and Stanford University.
“It was between that and (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology),” said the 17-year-old Salazar, who will pursue mechanical engineering at the prestigious university.
Stanford and MIT were Salazar’s top college picks. One of the reasons he chose to stay in California was to be near by his father, a single parent, and his ailing grandmother in Benicia.