Senior year can be the year for making big decisions -- from picking your next school to applying for scholarships. So how would you react to knowing you got a full-ride scholarship to a well-known Ivy League school?
Aya Kasim, a senior at Medina Valley High School, says she was running and screaming down the school hallway when she found out her next destination after graduation was Yale University.
It’s something that wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t followed a gut feeling.
“At first, I didn’t believe I could get it,” Kasim said. “I thought I didn’t have what it takes. In fact, I almost didn’t submit my application, and then I did.”
Kasim was referencing the QuestBridge National College Match Scholarship. The goal is to connect high-achieving seniors from low-income families to colleges.
Kasim says she’s glad to get a leg up on her future, an opportunity her immigrant mother never had.
“She is my role model,” Kasim said. “She cares so much, not only for her family but for the people around her. She immigrated here, and she restarted (her life). She always tells me I have like 10 times a better life than she does.”
Kasim will be pursuing a computer science degree to hopefully add more female representation to the field.
And with free tuition, room and board, textbooks and more, she says this means “a brighter future for, like, my lineage and my descendants.”
Kasim said she was inspired to go to Yale University after watching the TV show “Gilmore Girls.”
All the best to you, Aya!