Guess where Naheem is going to college? Naheem is going to Yale!
Out of 35,220 applicants, Naheem’s among the 6.5 percent who were offered a spot in Yale’s Class of 2024.
It costs almost $79,000 per year and he’ll be attending for free.
Naheem recently joined more than 40 other TeenSHARPies to publicly announce their college decisions during TeenSHARP’s annual College Signing Day event.
But, during this national moment of reckoning on systemic racism, I can’t help but think about how easily students like Naheem can have their potential and purpose stolen from them.
Naheem has been with TeenSHARP since 9th grade. In elementary school, he was always fighting and was labeled the typical “bad student.”
He said, “I always thought as a little kid I would end up in jail as a lot of men in my community had gone to jail. I thought there was really nothing I could do to change that fact.”
In his college essay he wrote:
“As a young Black boy, who grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, a city labeled as Murdertown USA and ranked number one in teen shootings, I needed to know that a hero could come from a city like mine.”
He continued on:
“I woke up excited to spend yet another weekend at my dad’s house. It was there where my Beyblades, plastic swords, and other toys I used for my imaginary adventures resided. Once I arrived, however, I found myself in the middle of an unexpected scene, one that told a story of a nightmare, and not of an invincible hero. In the house there were couch cushions thrown everywhere, the plants knocked over, my sleeping area trashed, and many of my precious toys thrown around and broken. I later learned that the police raided my house for drugs. My father was arrested and sentenced to four years in a maximum-security prison. At that moment, I felt my imaginative spirit slip away.”
The world is so lucky that Naheem has been able to reclaim his imaginative spirit.
With TeenSHARP’s support, Naheem has spent 7 weeks in Jeonju, South Korea on a full scholarship from NSLI-Y.
He’s spent 6 weeks studying race and ethnicity on University of Michigan’s campus as a Telluride scholar.
And we’ve even supported him to deliver his first TEDx talk.
Now, he’s off to college.
We will continue to support Naheem and our other brilliant students so that they don’t just attend these elite institutions, they thrive there.
And TeenSHARP could really use your support, so we can help many more students realize their potential.
