‘Everybody shut up! I’m going to college for free!’ How this Philly native, the oldest of 12, got the golden ticket.

Isabella Perez-Murillo was driving one of her younger sisters when she got the most consequential email of her life.

“Congratulations,” it read, “you’ve been awarded the Gates Scholarship.”

Perez-Murillo, who had asked her sister to check her phone, was so astonished she almost swerved into a tree as her sister read the message aloud.

Because of her family’s finances and her enormous responsibilities at home, the 18-year-old had thought college wasn’t going to be possible. But the Gates is a golden ticket: a free ride to college and as far through graduate school as she wants to go.

It was the jolt of a lifetime. But Perez-Murillo is nothing if not steady — she righted the car, got home safely, and then made an appropriately large splash.

With 11 younger siblings, from an infant to a 17-year-old, it’s always loud at home. Perez-Murillo called the room to order.

“I said, ‘Attention! Everybody shut up! I’m going to college for free!’” she said.

It was a jaw-dropping moment: Fewer than 1% of those who apply for Gates Scholarships win them.

But it was totally Izzy: years of hard, uncomplaining work culminating in a finish with fireworks.

Perez-Murillo grew up in Olney, rooted in her faith and her growing family. She attended Esperanza Charter Academy through eighth grade, then earned a place at Central High, but opted to go to Cristo Rey, a private, college-preparatory high school that centers work-study experiences and offers full or nearly full scholarships to all its students.

She quickly impressed Sean Conard, who taught Perez-Murillo English and world history in her 10th-grade year.

“Many students are academically gifted. Many students have familial responsibilities at home. Many students are artistically gifted. Many students learn other languages. But Izzy does all of those things, and does them well,” Conard said.

The only time he saw her struggle, Conard said, was over an assignment that required a six-minute presentation. To say all she wanted to on her topic, artistic expression in postwar Japan, Perez-Murillo could have spoken for 45 minutes, he said.

Once, at a school assembly, Perez-Murillo, a gifted musician, surveyed her fellow students to find out all the native languages spoken at Cristo Rey. Then she taught herself a song with a verse in eight different languages, just because she wanted to make everyone feel welcome, and sang it in front of everyone to thunderous applause.

She joined the robotics team and the National Honor Society, and had meaningful work-study experiences at Holy Redeemer Hospital, Mercy Neighborhood Ministries, and the Academy of Natural Sciences, wowing people wherever she went. She earned a better-than-4.0 GPA and held two jobs, working at Dunkin’ Donuts and doing sales and marketing.

“The Izzy experience is: She can say so much about the world, and her only struggle is trying to fit it into the parameters of what a teacher is asking,” Conard said.

Sophomore year was a challenge for Perez-Murillo in many ways.

Her family had outgrown their Olney house and had to move. But plans fell through and, for a time, they had to cram into a small house in Grays Ferry.

“That was a really difficult time. Nobody had a bed,” she said. “My brother slept in the living room. Everybody felt really sad for our mom — she was pregnant. She’s really strong, but all of the kids said, ‘We don’t want Mom sleeping on an air mattress.’”

Money was tight. Perez-Murillo didn’t just help watch her younger sisters and brothers. She took on the job of keeping everyone’s spirits up.

“I remember making cake for the kids — it was just box cake, just to give them something special,” she said. “It was a time that brought us close together as a family, even though it was a time that we had almost nothing.”

Eventually, the family found the house that was right for them. But there was a catch: The new place was in Levittown. Perez-Murillo said goodbye to her teachers, to her friends, sure Cristo Rey was an impossibility.

Then a neighbor intervened, showing Perez-Murillo how to navigate SEPTA Regional Rail. The commute was tough — more than an hour each way by train and on foot. But it meant she could stay at a place that felt like home.

“Something about Cristo Rey told me, ‘Two years from now, when I’m graduating, I’m not going to regret that I stayed,’” Perez-Murillo said.

As college came closer, Perez-Murillo worried. With a large family that relies on her father’s income as a machine operator, her parents helping out financially didn’t feel like a real option.

Perez-Murillo got plenty of college acceptances, but some rejections. A key scholarship she hoped for was a no, and she started entertaining other possibilities.

“My thought was, ‘OK, if I don’t get the Gates Scholarship, I’m not going to college. My dad kept saying, ‘We can take out a loan, we’ll do that for you,’ and I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ I just didn’t want to have that on my back, so I said, if I don’t get enough money to cover my education, I’ll spend my life working and fund everyone else’s education,’” Perez-Murillo said.

It became a moot point when she got Gates, which will allow her to attend Villanova University at no cost to her family. Perez-Murillo is planning to major in astronomy and astrophysics and live at home, commuting to campus via train — an approximately two-hour commute each way on SEPTA Regional Rail.

Perez-Murillo did entertain the idea of living on campus, just to get a sense of independence.

“Living with 13 people, I am never alone,” she said. (What would it be like to just put your stuff out and not worry about a little sister or brother touching it, she wonders?)

But, ultimately, she made the Izzy call.

“At the end of the day, I’m going to do what’s best for my family, and ultimately what I think will be best for me,” Perez-Murillo said.

She made her first visit to Villanova a few weeks ago, and the campus is lovely, she said. She is nervous about classes — will she be late because of the train schedule? — but also eager to meet new people, soak up new knowledge.

Until then, she is working a lot, taking care of her siblings, planning for a big summer trip to the Italy and the Vatican with youth from her church.

And she has also convened summer school, lining up her school-age siblings and tutoring them.

One of the younger ones asked Perez-Murillo what a scholarship was.

“I said, ‘I’m going to college, and other people are paying for it, because I worked hard — your oldest sister is going to school for free,’” she said. “I told them, ‘You guys need to lock in, we’re all going to study.’”