scholarship Archives

Jamaican Teen Offered 9 Scholarships by US Universities

Tchakamau Mahakoe is still not settled on which of the US universities she will attend. (OBSERVER FILE PHOTO)

TCHAKAMAU, the ambitious and brilliant schoolgirl the Jamaica Observer featured two years ago along with her brother for their academic achievements, has been accepted into 11 American universities, nine of which have offered her scholarships.

Her mother Kamau Mahakoe shared the news with the Observer yesterday, noting that she was proud of her daughter’s achievement.

“Clearly, l’m ecstatic. I feel really good for her because she has been focused from the start,” Kamau said of her 17-year-old daughter, who had been home-schooled before moving on to Immaculate Conception High School in St Andrew, and then the Hillel Academy on a scholarship.

“She has never lost sight of her goals… you don’t have to push her… she uses her initiative,” Kamau added. “I’m happy for her. Really happy.”

Among the 11 institutions in the US that have accepted the teen’s applications are Princeton, Duke, Yale, and Stanford universities and the University of Chicago.

The teen is still not clear on which she will be attending come August/September to pursue double majors in physics and biology. She wants to become an astronaut, her mother said.

h/t – jamaicaobserver

Why the All-Ivy League Story Stirs Up Tensions Between African Immigrants and Black Americans

ABC

The story of the first-generation Ghanian-American student accepted by all eight Ivy league schools is wonderful, but it also stirs up the tension between black Americans and recent African immigrants — especially when you describe him as “not a typical African-American kid.” That’s been the reaction to USA Today‘s profile on Kwasi Enin, a Long Island high schooler who got into the nation’s most competitive schools through hard work and, according to IvyWise CEO Katherine Cohen, being African (and being male). At one point the piece reads:

Being a first-generation American from Ghana also helps him stand out, Cohen says. “He’s not a typical African-American kid.”

“Not a typical African-American kid” is being read as an allusion to the lazy black American stereotype. The tension comes from the fact that some African immigrants buy into that stereotype, which gets turned into “Africans don’t like black people.” This has almost nothing to do with Enin, who is obviously a remarkable young man, and everything to do with how America perceives and portrays black Americans and African immigrants.

h/t – thewire