Class of 2025 supplied greater than $50 million in scholarships
4 sisters within the healthcare discipline shock 4 seniors with scholarships in honor of their father
Nationwide — For the twelfth consecutive yr, Southland School Prep Constitution Excessive College in Richton Park, Illinois, celebrated that all the members of the Class of 2025 have been accepted to varsity. The 145-member class has amassed greater than $50 million in scholarships and counting.
Throughout the faculty’s annual “All In” celebration on Might 9, seniors celebrated that all the members of the category have been accepted to varsity and introduced which schools they plan to attend. This yr, for the primary time, 4 seniors have been shocked with scholarships from the Kwarteng Household Basis.
The 4 Kwarteng sisters–Sandra, Lisa, Amy, and Esther–are all in or pursuing healthcare professions. To honor their father, Alex, who remains to be residing, the Kwarteng sisters have established a basis that awarded $10,000 in scholarships to Class of 2025 graduates of Southland School Prep, the youthful Kwarteng sisters Amy and Esther’s alma mater.
Their father immigrated to america from Ghana within the Nineteen Eighties searching for a greater life. Within the States, he met his spouse, Stella, and began a household whereas working his means by way of pharmacy faculty and having a profitable profession that paved the best way for his daughters to graduate from pharmacy, dental, and medical faculty.
“We wish to assist individuals in the best way that we have been helped,” mentioned the eldest daughter, Sandra.
The Kwarteng Household Basis scholarship recipients and their deliberate schools are Kehinde Sowemimo, Yale College; Itohan Salami, Washington College; Dhayra Gomez, College of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Terri Mensah, Carleton School.
Sowemimo, 18, who immigrated to america as a baby, can be Southland’s Class of 2025 valedictorian. Amy Kwarteng, who was the valedictorian of Southland’s Class of 2015, earned a bachelor’s diploma in psychology from Yale College, is a fourth-year medical faculty scholar on the College of Michigan, and has lately been matched in a psychiatry residency program at UCLA.
Esther, a 2016 Southland graduate, earned a bachelor’s diploma from Duke College and is a rising third-year medical scholar at Drexel College School of Medication.
The older Kwarteng siblings are graduates of Wealthy Central Excessive College, and each reside in Chicago. Lisa, who graduated in 2011, is an orthodontist, and Sandra, a 2008 Wealthy Central alumna, adopted in her father’s footsteps and is a pharmacist. Dr. Alex Kwarteng and his spouse Stella reside in Matteson, Illinois.
The household hopes that the scholarships is not going to solely assist college students financially but additionally that their household’s story will encourage them.
“You are able to do it,” mentioned Sandra Kwarteng. “Irrespective of how laborious it feels. Our household is a residing instance of that.”
Throughout the ceremony, an emotional Dr. Alex Kwarteng inspired Southland college students to “give again.”
“You’ll be so nice,” Alex Kwarteng mentioned. “Don’t neglect about your loved ones and neighborhood. In life, give again.”
At a time when Ivy League colleges are solely accepting as few as 3 p.c of candidates, three Southland seniors have been accepted to 5 Ivy League colleges. The three younger ladies—Kehinde Sowemimo, Khaliah Muhammad, and Mofoluwake Arogundade—gained admittance to Brown College, Cornell College, Harvard College, the College of Pennsylvania, and Yale College.
“Our college students have labored laborious and earned a spot at a number of the prime colleges within the nation,” mentioned Dr. Blondean Y. Davis, Southland’s CEO. “We’re pleased with them and comfortable to have fun their achievements.”
Sowemimo was accepted to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, the College of Pennsylvania, and Brown College. Captain of Southland’s Mock Trial Workforce and ladies basketball crew, Sowemimo plans to check political science or economics and attend legislation faculty.
Caring academics, coaches, and the “household feeling” of Southland helped Sowemimo, who additionally participated within the Nationwide Honor Society and Tech Membership and is the founding editor of the Southland Woman Energy group publication, “She Speaks,” to achieve confidence throughout her highschool years and consider in herself.
“You really do really feel like persons are rooting for you,” Sowemimo mentioned. “It’s very distinctive in a way.”
Ten Southland seniors have been admitted to California Polytechnic State College—San Luis Obispo, often called CalPoly, with full-ride scholarships. The $2 million in scholarships to CalPoly is the results of a rising partnership with the California faculty, in accordance with Robert Lane, Southland’s Director of School Admissions. In 2023, CalPoly agreed to supply a full-ride scholarship to a Southland scholar yearly. The college was so impressed with Southland college students that it determined to supply a number of scholarships in 2023 and 2024, Lane mentioned. A number of Southland alumni presently attend CalPoly.
Forty p.c of Southland’s Class of 2025 have been supplied full-ride scholarships by schools and universities, Lane mentioned.
“These school admissions characterize hope for the way forward for not simply these college students and their households, however for our communities within the south suburbs,” Lane mentioned.
Two members of the 2025 class, Rickaiya Bernard and Mofuluwake Arogundade, earned a cumulative complete of greater than $750,000 in scholarships to prime universities from the QuestBridge Nationwide School Match Program. Bernard will attend Northwestern College, and Arogundade has been matched to Brown College. The scholarships embrace tuition, room and board, books and provides, charges, and journey bills. The Southland seniors are amongst 2,627 finalists who have been matched by QuestBridge out of an applicant pool of greater than 25,000.
Since Southland’s first graduation class in 2014, graduates have been accepted to all the prime 50 nationwide universities, together with all eight Ivy League colleges. Southland graduates have been admitted to each main four-year public Illinois college and a number of other Traditionally Black Faculties and Universities.
“Admissions to the highest colleges are vital,” Lane mentioned. “However equally vital is that each scholar finds a faculty that’s proper for them.”
Graduation ceremonies for Southland’s twelfth graduating class are set for Saturday, Might 24, at 4 p.m. within the Harris Theater, Millennium Park, Chicago.
For press inquiries, contact Monica Fountain, Director of Communications, at 708-748-8105 ext. 4138 or [email protected]
