22 Kenyans have won Sh980 million ($7.5 million) in scholarships this year to attend prestigious universities in the USA.
Under the Kenya Scholar Access Program (KenSAP), the students have been admitted to universities such as Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Amherst, and Brown.
Others are Claremont McKenna, Colgate, Dartmouth, Davidson, Hamilton, Middlebury, Northwestern, Smith, Tufts, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Toronto, Wellesley, and Williams.
The selected individuals were top performers in the last year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) from across the country.
While KenSAP pays for students to participate in the free residential university access program, participating universities offer scholarship packages that cover tuition fees, accommodation, and meals, among other costs.
“By providing these exceptional students with the resources they need, we are not only investing in their futures but also in the future of the country and bringing bright Kenyan minds to places all across the world,” Principal Benefactor and Chairman of KenSAP’s Board of Directors, Charles Field-Marsham, said.
Each year, KenSAP selects 20 students from more than 1,000 highly qualified applicants. Just to apply, candidates must rank among the top 1⁄10 of 1 percent of all test takers on the KCSE.
But KenSAP’s selection process, like that of the universities to which its students apply, is holistic, taking into consideration a range of criteria beyond the purely academic, such as family background, extracurricular accomplishments, commitment to community development, and leadership potential.
The selected students spend 20 weeks in residential training free of charge, with KenSAP covering all of their attendance costs.
In this training program, they prepare for university entrance exams, attend American-style seminar courses, learn about America and its universities, and are guided through the complex university application process.
Read the original article on https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/
