Congratulations to Nigerian Teen Rotimi Kukoyi, as he Gets Accepted Into 15 Schools with Over N800 Million in Scholarships

Congratulations to Nigerian Teen Rotimi Kukoyi,as he Gets Accepted Into 15 Schools with Over N800 Million in Scholarships

A brilliant Nigerian teenager, Rotimi Kukoyi has been accepted into 15 universities, and has been awarded more than $2 million in scholarships, which equals to N830 million.

Rotimi was accepted into Harvard, Stanford, Yale, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Virginia, Vanderbilt, Emory, Rice, Johns Hopkins, Duke, the University of Alabama, Case Western Reserve University, UAB, Auburn University and Washington University in St. Louis. He has decided to attend UNC Chapel Hill and has accepted the school’s Morehead-Cain Scholarship, the oldest merit scholarship program in the country. At UNC, Rotimi hopes to pursue a career in public health, to help others.

Rotimi’s decision was inspired in part by the pandemic and his experience helping the Alabama Department of Health get residents vaccinated.

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Rotimi is a high school senior and the first Black National Merit Scholar at his school. The Alabama teen told ABC News that he was inspired to apply to a number of schools after appearing on the “Jeopardy!” Teen Tournament as a freshman in 2018, and meeting high achieving students from across the country.

“It was really fun experience but also put me in contact with some pretty cool students from across the country,” Kukoyi said. “A lot of them are older and they’re like seniors or juniors that applied to many prestigious schools. A lot of them are attending prestigious universities now. So that was kind of my original inspiration to apply to those universities.”

Rotimi hopes to inspire other students to apply to schools they may not have considered before.

“A lot of kids that I talked to didn’t think they could apply to the bigger schools or get into the bigger schools” or were concerned about the costs, he said. “But there are other resources available to students to kind of help with that.”

“… A lot of those more competitive schools offer much more extensive financial aid than state schools,” he added.

The teen scholar also said that, as the only Black male student in all of his school classes, he hopes to change things so that underrepresented populations and lower income students are offered the same learning opportunities as their peers.

“… I feel like a lot of the disparities that we see with standardized testing are because these underrepresented minorities in low income communities often can’t afford the same levels of [test preparation] that that their wealthier counterparts get,” he said. “So by establishing free tutoring programs, that could kind of help to equalize the playing field.”

To assist with the financial restraints that minority students face when preparing for college, Rotimi played a vital part in setting up free tutoring for those in need of more academic support or resources, and for those seeking to take the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

Rotimi is not only a star student, but also plays soccer and was in student government. Despite all of his accomplishments, the teenager says he wants to be known for helping people.

“I want my legacy to be one that’s focused on impacting other people,” he said. “I suppose a lot of people in the pursuit of their own goals can kind of forget what it’s all about.”

In February 2022, Rotimi was named Hoover High winner of 2022 Finley character award. The Finley Award is given each year to the senior from each Hoover high school and one faculty member from throughout Hoover school system who best demonstrates the character of former Berry High School coach Bob Finley, who was known for his outstanding character.

The Finley Award is given to people who set high standards for themselves, assume responsibility where appropriate, exhibit quiet leadership, encourage others, demonstrate an outstanding work ethic, have genuine concern for others, show respect for others, have a humble manner, are honest and set a positive example for their peers.

Now, Rotimi has gone on to excel even further after getting accepted into some of the top schools in the United States.

Congratulations Rotimi Kukoyi.