Last Thursday 10 D.C. high school students were surprised with the gift of a Stephen Joel Trachtenberg Scholarship to the George Washington University.  The award covers tuition, room, board, and books for four years at GW.  Traditional public school, charter, and private school students are eligible for the prize which has been given out since since 1989 to more than 160 kids.

There were some extremely interesting winners for 2016.  Mr. Carlos Lopez Sanchez from Bell Multicultural High School traveled alone from his home country of Guatemala to the United States three years ago.  After a highly dangerous trip and detention he was accepted to live in an American home.  Mr. Sanchez now is conversant in three languages and serves on his school’s robotics and debate clubs.  He plans to study engineering in college.

Md Ahammed, also from Bell, was raised on a farm in Bangladesh.  His father was a school principal and his mother was a teacher.  Mr. Ahammed is now an apprentice at the National Building Museum.

These pupils, as well as eight others, were greeted in person by George Washington University president Steven Knapp, Karen Stroud Felton, GW’s dean of undergraduate admissions, George, the GW mascot, and admissions department staff.  None of the high academic achieving students knew that this day would be one of the most important in their lives.

The press release around the event points out that the Trachtenberg Scholarships are one way GW is trying to bring hard working students from all backgrounds to the school.  Others include “GW’s July 2015 announcement that it will no longer require most undergraduate applicants to submit SAT or ACT test scores was another. Still more include the university’s participation in D.C. College Application Week, its Early College Program at School Without Walls, the District Scholars Award and partnerships with the Posse Foundation and Say Yes to Education.”

Others winning the 2016 scholarships include:

Mikias Gebremeskel of Roosevelt High School;

Nathan Hanshew of Washington Latin Public Charter School;

Adel Hassen of School Without Walls;

Asia Jones of Benjamin Banneker Academic High School;

Lisa Le of Bell Multicultural High School;

Daniel Nguyen of Capital City Public Charter School;

Jarid Shields of Eastern Senior High School; and

Sakiya Walker of Duke Ellington School of the Arts