Nationwide — Akayla Brown, an 18-year old African American from Philadelphia, is proud to be one of only 300 high school students to win this year’s prestigious Gates Scholarship in the country.
Brown has always a good student, having earned a 4.19 GPA. So when she was applying for colleges last October, her mother urged her to apply for the Gates Scholarship, which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
She had some doubts that she’d make it when she learned that there were 34,000 applicants. But she believed in herself and still did her best in preparing the requirements, including lots of paperwork and an essay.
She shared in her essay her passions, such as helping other people through the nonprofit she founded in 2016 at the age of 13. Since then, her nonprofit called Dimplez 4 Dayz has grown and she said that the scholarship could help her grow and expand it further.
Through the Gates Scholarship, Brown will receive funding for the full cost of attendance which includes tuition, fees, room, board, books, transportation, and even other personal costs, regardless of which university she will attend.
Brown, who plans to major in international business, has been accepted into several universities. She has yet to choose where she will attend but she narrowed down her choices to Temple, Villanova, and Howard University — those that are near her home so she could still run her nonprofit.
“My biggest goal is to expand my nonprofit, and this degree will give me a good foundation for that,” Brown told Philadelphia Magazine. “Maybe I’ll travel all over the world and establish recreation centers so kids in other parts of the world can have these resources.”