Alabama Student Awarded $2 Million Scholarship with 15 Top University Acceptances

Rotimi Kukoyi, a high school student from Alabama was accepted to more than 15 prestigious universities and received more than $2 million in scholarship offers.

Kukoyi was accepted to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, and Duke, among other colleges. He ultimately chose to study Health Policy and Management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he would receive the famous Morehead-Cain Scholarship.

The high school senior was the first African-American National Merit Scholar in his Hoover, Alabama, school. He told ABC News that after appearing on the "Jeopardy!" Teen Tournament as a freshman in 2018 and meeting high-achieving students from throughout the country, he was inspired to apply to various universities.

With an interesting Robert Frost reference, the teen wrote on Instagram last month, sharing his experience.

“With this scholarship, I’m able to choose the path less traveled by — the road not taken — and define my own journey. And have it all paid for. At UNC, I hope to lay the foundations of a career driving health equity in our nation.”

In another post, he stated that picking a college was "agonizing" and that after considering Harvard and Yale, he decided on UNC because of the scholarship program's flexibility.

According to ABC News, the epidemic influenced his decision to seek a profession in public health. He stated that he wishes for his legacy to be one of service to others.

COVID triggered Kukoyi’s interest in public health because it was the first he noticed how the imbalanced system of healthcare.

He emphasized that it was almost like were two distinct pandemics wreaking havoc, and the marginalization observed was far too great to ignore.