Karina Pena-Seda was devastated when she learned she’d never serve in the Navy.
It was 2012, and the senior at Roxbury’s John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science was two weeks from graduation when a physical revealed previously undiagnosed hearing loss. The Navy scholarship she’d earned to Norwich University was suddenly useless.
“I didn’t have a plan B,” Pena-Seda said.
But five years later, with a degree from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, she has a burgeoning career, a new car, and an uncommon devotion to the school she’d barely heard of when her life seemed to capsize. And through a new program that offers O’Bryant students admission and full financial aid to attend the academy, she’s hoping dozens of city students will follow her lead.
The Maritime Academy and Boston Public Schools plan to announce the partnership on Monday. Up to 18 rising juniors will be eligible for dual enrollment program in the high school, and those who complete it will be guaranteed admission. Financial aid will cover 100 percent of the students’ need.
“We’re talking about kids with a fairly steep climb,” said Rear Admiral Francis McDonald, the academy’s president. “This can be a game-changer for a family.”
In a school system in which many students are plagued by poverty, the Maritime Academy has uncommon potential.
According to a recent study by the Equality of Opportunity Project, Massachusetts Maritime was among the schools where poor students — those whose family income was in the bottom 20 percent — were most likely to become rich adults (those in the top 20 percent).
It ranked third in the country among selective public schools, and 26th nationally.
Number 27 and 28? Columbia and Georgetown.
Not bad company for a school that Pena-Seda said is still not well understood by the prospective students she talks to.
“That is definitely an attraction for them — for them and their parents,” said Tanya Freeman-Wisdom, headmaster at O’Bryant, said of the prospects for economic mobility.
For the academy, working more closely with O’Bryant could mean a more diverse student body. Despite some outreach efforts, the student body is homogenous — overwhelmingly white and male — even though its demonstrated ability to lift its students out of poverty makes it a natural fit for city students inclined toward math and science.
About half of the academy’s students major in engineering. Others study maritime and other high-paying fields.
Some become merchant mariners, captaining oil tankers or container ships — Captain Richard Phillips, whom you may remember from the movie that bore his name, is a graduate. Others run power plants, stadiums, or apartment buildings.
“It’s a Massachusetts university that very few people know about,” said Michael Sullivan, director of science and technology at O’Bryant, who has overseen the academy’s dual-enrollment program at the school and earlier, looser associations in the past. “It’s probably the best value of any of the state schools.”
Including tuition and fees, the annual bill for in-state students is about $20,000.
Several other area schools offer to cover all financial need for students who can get in, but only one other, the University of Massachusetts Boston, guarantees admission in the way the academy partnership will, said Marsha Inniss-Mitchell, director of post-secondary partnerships and initiatives at Boston Public Schools.
She said she didn’t know of any other Boston programs that combine guaranteed admission and full financial aid.
For students who enroll in the program — it will expand to 24 students annually in future years — the benefits include an introduction to college level work and the accumulation of credit. Trips to the academy, which is in Buzzards Bay, will aim to get the students comfortable on campus.
McDonald said the academy is committed to making sure students who become cadets don’t just matriculate, but thrive.
A mentorship program is part of the project, and the academy is in discussions with Boston civic organizations about how to make sure women and minority students succeed.
The student body this year is less than 2 percent black, 4 percent Hispanic, and 13 percent female.
Pena-Seda, whose father is from Honduras and whose mother is from Puerto Rico, said that took a little getting used to. She remembered only one other Hispanic woman in her graduating class.
But now 23 and working at Canada Steamship Lines developing new business in South and Central America, Pena-Seda is thrilled with how things turned out — even if she’ll never be an officer in the Navy. She volunteers to talk to prospective cadets, and she will attend Monday’s announcement.
“I was lucky,” she said. Her Navy scholarship meant her parents were not expecting to pay for college, but the academy and some loans made up the difference that first year.
Now, the route she took is wider, and many more may follow.
Nestor Ramos can be reached at nestor.ramos@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @NestorARamos.