Browse Tag

scholarship

Published on
3 mins read

Florida Teen Accepted into 27 Colleges, Receives $4 Million in Scholarships

Jonathan Walker, a high school senior from Florida, has been accepted into almost 30 of the most prestigious colleges in the country and has more than $4 million in scholarships offers.

Walker has applied to 27 colleges, and all 27 have accepted him.

“It’s so crazy to think about, that I applied to all these colleges and I got in because that’s such a rare thing to occur. But the fact that it did happen, I’m so excited about it,” Walker said.

Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and Duke were among the 27 schools he was admitted into.

Walker is still trying to whittle down the choices and take a few more college visits, with under a month to make a decision.

“The whirlwind of like decisions coming back, that’s over now. So I’ve just really been trying to soak it in just how much of a blessing that this is that I got into these colleges. So just like sitting back, smelling the roses,” Walker said.

Walker hopes to pursue a career creating medical devices to serve underprivileged communities and he’s already working on multiple patents.

Walker invented a braille system, created an air filter to turn gas emissions into oxygen, and created a pill dispenser to keep track of drugs— on a TI-84 calculator.

florida
Jonathan Walker with his invention

“Right now, I’m very interested in engineering and entrepreneurship. I’ve always loved creating devices to help people so I definitely want to further that,” Walker said. “I’m looking at majoring in electrical engineering and possibly biomedical engineering to hopefully develop medical technology in order to help disadvantaged communities that have health problems.”

He said he’s working with colleges to create his own major.

Walker plans to study engineering, computer science, business and psychology, in hopes of one day creating his own company.

“Jonathan has not been a typical student. He has continued to persevere despite all the challenges that we faced you know with the hurricane,” Rutherford High School IB and AP Coordinator Cathy Rutland said.

Walker has also played on the Rams football team for the past four years while maintaining a 4.85 GPA.

You might be interested in

Published on
1 min read

LSU offers National Spelling Bee winner, Zaila Avant-gard, a full scholarship

Zaila Avant-garde

Louisiana State University (LSU) on Saturday offered , Zaila Avant-garde, the first African American contestant to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee, a full scholarship.

Avant-garde has drawn attention following her win. The teen has garnered praise in the past few days for her athletic prowess after it was noted the same child has notched multiple Guinness World Records for basketball.

Tony O. Lawson

Subscribe and Follow SHOPPE BLACK on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter

To advertise with us, click here

You might be interested in

Published on
3 mins read

Curtis Lawrence III Graduated High School Early, Was Accepted to 14 Colleges and Chose an HBCU

Curtis Lawrence III

In 2014, Curtis Lawrence III began taking dual enrollment courses at School Without Walls High School and George Washington University.

This spring, he will earn his Associates Degree and head to FAMU where he will pursue a double major in computer science and biology as well as a minor in Mandarin.

Curtis Lawrence III

Lawrence has also been awarded over $1.65 Million in Merit Scholarships. He was also accepted to Howard University, North Carolina A&T University, Morehouse College, Hampton University, Morgan State University, Claflin University, Hutson-Tillotson University, George Washington University, West Virginia Wesleyan, UC Berkeley, the University of Chicago, Yale and Harvard.

Lawrence’s love for education started at a young age. His parents, both educators, instilled the importance of school into he and his younger brother Corey early on, constantly taking them on trips to different museums, colleges, states and countries to expose them to what the world has to offer.

The competition is stiff among universities to recruit top young scholars. Dedra O’Neal, director of the FAMU Scholarship Program, has conducted Zoom calls with alumni scholars and prospective students since last fall.

The recruitment effort deploys alumni based in places such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Zambia, the Caribbean, France, and across the U.S. to discuss the FAMU scholar experience with top prospective students.

FAMU President Dr. Larry Robinson lauded Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. William E. Hudson Jr. for his role in successfully recruiting Lawrence. Hudson visited Lawrence’s Washington, D.C., high school, School Without Walls at George Washington University, last fall.

Lawrence said FAMU felt like home and explained one of the reasons he wants to be a Rattler: “Especially as a young student having been able to meet other students who also started college early at FAMU, and so I was able to really know that FAMU will provide me with that academic and professional support on top of schooling.”

Curtis Lawrence III
Curtis and his family | Credit: TN Democrat

Florida A&M University is competing with the best schools in the country to get top of the line students, including sixteen year old Curtis Lawrence III.

The young scholar now with his sights set on his undergraduate degree in which he doesn’t have to pay a dime.

Lawrence III could’ve continued his education at almost any university in the country but for his undergrad degree, his parents pushed an HBCU.

“We felt that at their start, right, at those fundamental times when you figure it out yourself. Who am I? What am I going to do in life?,” explained Curtis’ father Curtis Lawrence Jr. “To be in an environment that we felt would be nurturing I’m very supportive of their development. So that was very very important for us to create that level of foundation.”

 

You might be interested in

Published on
2 mins read

Kelisha Williams, From Foster Care To Harvard on a Full Scholarship

When Kelisha Williams was younger, she told her teachers she wanted to be the president when she grew up. She is now one step closer to her dream as she prepares to head to Harvard University in the fall.

Kelisha Williams entered the foster care system at 16 years old, and she said it has been a tough few years in the system. She has moved five times in less than two years before ending up with SAFY foster mom Maria Finkenstead.

Williams was working at Walmart and preparing for college when Finkenstead asked her how college admissions were going.

“I said, ‘Hey did you take the ACT?'” Finkenstead said. “She said, ‘Yeah,’ and I said, ‘Well, what did you get?’ And she’s like, a 32, and I was like, ‘You can go anywhere!'”

“When I applied to Harvard, I applied to Harvard as a joke,” Williams said. “I didn’t think I was going to get in.”

What started as a joke became more real as the days went on. As part of Harvard’s admissions interview, Williams spoke with Michelle Obama and Lin Manuel Miranda. During the interviews, Williams asked Obama how she kept going with so many people working against her.

Now, Williams is preparing to study political science and psychology on a full-ride scholarship to Harvard.

“She’s done all the work. All the determination has come from her,” Finkenstead said. “I take no credit in any of her accomplishments.”

“To any of the foster kids that are watching, everyone always says it’s going to get better. I never used to believe that when I was going through it and stuff like that,” Williams said. “Eventually it does.”

 

SOURCE: WCPO

You might be interested in

Published on
4 mins read

British Rapper Stormzy to fund Cambridge Scholarships for Black Students

stormzy

British rapper Stormzy has announced that he is funding two scholarships for Black British students to go to Cambridge University.

The grime artist will pay the students’ tuition fees as well as a maintenance grant for up to four years of an undergraduate course.

Speaking on Thursday at his former school, the Harris City Academy in Croydon, south London, where A-level students were opening their results, Stormzy told BBC Breakfast: “If you’re academically brilliant don’t think because you come from a certain community that studying at one of the highest education institutions in the world isn’t possible.”

The 25-year-old, who won best album at this year’s Ivor Novello awards, has previously been praised for tackling social injustice, including advocating on behalf of victims of the Grenfell Tower fire. He is funding two places this year and two next year.

The move comes amid concerns about lack of diversity at the Oxbridge universities. Figures published in June showed some Cambridge colleges admitted no black students or accepted as few as one a year between 2012 and 2016.

stormzy

Stormzy said that when he was at school he had ambitions to study at Oxbridge but some people did not realise the option was open to them.

“I was always reminded by my teachers that I was destined, if I wanted, to go down that road and study at one of the top universities,” he said. “I diverted and ended up doing music so it didn’t happen for me. I thought I was quite a rare case in that I knew that was possible.

“That’s not always the case. When students are young, academically brilliant and getting great grades, they should know that’s an option.”

Last year he donated £9,000 to a crowdfunding initiative set up by a student from south-west London to enable her to study at Harvard.

He said he coasted through GCSEs – he got six A*s, three As and three Bs according to the BBC – but “didn’t do too great at A-levels”.

In 2016, when he was a guest speaker at the Oxford University Guild, Stormzy told students: “It was my dream to come to Oxford and study political science. I always thought Oxford is better [than Cambridge] anyway, it’s got a ring to it.”

By offering the scholarships, he is following a number of rappers, including Jay-Z and Nicky Minaj in the US, where the practice is popular. While the students will have to fund and organise their own College and University Cleaning during their time at Cambridge, the gesture from the grime artist will not go unnoticed.

The application deadline is 30 August for this year and is open to any black student with an offer to study at Cambridge, according to the BBC.

The students will be selected by a panel of university staff.

 

Source: The Guardian

You might be interested in