Class of 2025 offered more than $50 million in scholarships
Four sisters in the healthcare field surprise four seniors with scholarships in honor of their father
Nationwide — For the twelfth consecutive year, Southland College Prep Charter High School in Richton Park, Illinois, celebrated that all of the members of the Class of 2025 were accepted to college. The 145-member class has amassed more than $50 million in scholarships and counting.
During the school’s annual “All In” celebration on May 9, seniors celebrated that all of the members of the class have been accepted to college and announced which colleges they plan to attend. This year, for the first time, four seniors were surprised with scholarships from the Kwarteng Family Foundation.
The four Kwarteng sisters–Sandra, Lisa, Amy, and Esther–are all in or pursuing healthcare professions. To honor their father, Alex, who is still living, the Kwarteng sisters have established a foundation that awarded $10,000 in scholarships to Class of 2025 graduates of Southland College Prep, the younger Kwarteng sisters Amy and Esther’s alma mater.
Their father immigrated to the United States from Ghana in the 1980s in search of a better life. In the States, he met his wife, Stella, and started a family while working his way through pharmacy school and having a successful career that paved the way for his daughters to graduate from pharmacy, dental, and medical school.
“We want to help people in the way that we were helped,” said the eldest daughter, Sandra.
The Kwarteng Family Foundation scholarship recipients and their planned colleges are Kehinde Sowemimo, Yale University; Itohan Salami, Washington University; Dhayra Gomez, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Terri Mensah, Carleton College.
Sowemimo, 18, who immigrated to the United States as a child, is also Southland’s Class of 2025 valedictorian. Amy Kwarteng, who was the valedictorian of Southland’s Class of 2015, earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Yale University, is a fourth-year medical school student at the University of Michigan, and has recently been matched in a psychiatry residency program at UCLA.
Esther, a 2016 Southland graduate, earned a bachelor’s degree from Duke University and is a rising third-year medical student at Drexel University College of Medicine.
The older Kwarteng siblings are graduates of Rich Central High School, and both live in Chicago. Lisa, who graduated in 2011, is an orthodontist, and Sandra, a 2008 Rich Central alumna, followed in her father’s footsteps and is a pharmacist. Dr. Alex Kwarteng and his wife Stella live in Matteson, Illinois.
The family hopes that the scholarships will not only help students financially but also that their family’s story will inspire them.
“You can do it,” said Sandra Kwarteng. “No matter how hard it feels. Our family is a living example of that.”
During the ceremony, an emotional Dr. Alex Kwarteng encouraged Southland students to “give back.”
“You are going to be so great,” Alex Kwarteng said. “Don’t forget about your family and community. In life, give back.”
At a time when Ivy League schools are only accepting as few as 3 percent of applicants, three Southland seniors were accepted to five Ivy League schools. The three young women—Kehinde Sowemimo, Khaliah Muhammad, and Mofoluwake Arogundade—gained admittance to Brown University, Cornell University, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University.
“Our students have worked hard and earned a place at some of the top schools in the country,” said Dr. Blondean Y. Davis, Southland’s CEO. “We are proud of them and happy to celebrate their achievements.”
Sowemimo was accepted to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, and Brown University. Captain of Southland’s Mock Trial Team and girls basketball team, Sowemimo plans to study political science or economics and attend law school.
Caring teachers, coaches, and the “family feeling” of Southland helped Sowemimo, who also participated in the National Honor Society and Tech Club and is the founding editor of the Southland Girl Power group newsletter, “She Speaks,” to gain confidence during her high school years and believe in herself.
“You actually do feel like people are rooting for you,” Sowemimo said. “It’s very unique in a sense.”
Ten Southland seniors have been admitted to California Polytechnic State University—San Luis Obispo, known as CalPoly, with full-ride scholarships. The $2 million in scholarships to CalPoly is the result of a growing partnership with the California school, according to Robert Lane, Southland’s Director of College Admissions. In 2023, CalPoly agreed to offer a full-ride scholarship to a Southland student every year. The university was so impressed with Southland students that it decided to offer multiple scholarships in 2023 and 2024, Lane said. Several Southland alumni currently attend CalPoly.
Forty percent of Southland’s Class of 2025 were offered full-ride scholarships by colleges and universities, Lane said.
“These college admissions represent hope for the future of not just these students and their families, but for our communities in the south suburbs,” Lane said.
Two members of the 2025 class, Rickaiya Bernard and Mofuluwake Arogundade, earned a cumulative total of more than $750,000 in scholarships to top universities from the QuestBridge National College Match Program. Bernard will attend Northwestern University, and Arogundade has been matched to Brown University. The scholarships include tuition, room and board, books and supplies, fees, and travel expenses. The Southland seniors are among 2,627 finalists who were matched by QuestBridge out of an applicant pool of more than 25,000.
Since Southland’s first commencement class in 2014, graduates have been accepted to all of the top 50 national universities, including all eight Ivy League schools. Southland graduates have been admitted to every major four-year public Illinois university and several Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
“Admissions to the top schools are important,” Lane said. “But equally important is that every student finds a school that is right for them.”
Commencement ceremonies for Southland’s twelfth graduating class are set for Saturday, May 24, at 4 p.m. in the Harris Theater, Millennium Park, Chicago.
Learn more about the school at SCPHS.org
For press inquiries, contact Monica Fountain, Director of Communications, at 708-748-8105 ext. 4138 or mfountain@sd162.org