Since their freshman year at John Hope College Prep High School, LaTreal Peterson and Sable Sanders have looked out for each other. So when Sanders said she was quitting her application for the prestigious Gates Millenium Scholarship%uFFFDwhich they were
“She’s got so much potential and I’m the type of person, I like to see my peers succeed,” Peterson said with a grin. Sanders remembers him being a little less diplomatic “He was like, ‘Girl, you better do this!’” she recalled laughing.
Sanders had just been denied another scholarship and said she wanted to quit the process altogether. But prompted by Peterson, she kept going. They stayed after school, helping each other with lengthy application essays that probed their strengths, weaknesses and aspirations.
A few months later, they learned that they’d both won the coveted scholarship, which lasts an educational lifetime, covering both undergraduate and graduate study. The academic prize%uFFFDreserved for high achieving, low-income students with a minimum, unweighted grade point average of 3.3 out of 4.0%uFFFDhas a 7 percent acceptance rate.
Chauncey Harris also won a scholarship. The Gates Millennium Scholars program, established in 1999, was initially funded by a $1 billion grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. According to Carlos Adrian, research analyst for the Gates Millenium Scholarship program, more than 13,000 students applied this year, and only 1,000 were accepted.
“It’s an honor and it’s a blessing. To know that we don’t have to go to college worrying about how we’re going to pay for the next semester or how we’re going to pay for books is an honor and a privilege,” said Peterson, who is headed to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the fall. Sanders will go to Knox College, in downstate Galesburg. As the two look to their futures, they also speak fondly of how they got to where they are now.
“Me and her, we have a big history, we call ourselves twins. Freshman year we came in and we were ranked No. 10 in our class, then we both moved up to No. 6, and then went to No. 3,” Peterson remembered. “Yeah, we stayed together,” Sanders laughed. “Well, she left me one year for a minute. She went up to No. 2, and then she came back to No. 3,” Peterson said with a chuckle.
The two%uFFFDboth National Honor Society members%uFFFDwent from academic competitors to friends, volunteering after school at the Museum of Science and Industry, and swapping life stories and advice. And the two have something else in common: they are the first in their immediate families to attend college.
Peterson was raised primarily by his grandmother and Sanders has two brothers, age 27 and 33, who never graduated high school. “I’m the first of my mother’s children to graduate high school and I want to be somebody my little brother can look up to. I want him to be like, ‘Well, if Sable can do it then maybe I can do it.’ I want him to go further than I go. My mama wants me to do more than her, and I want my little brother to do more than I do,” said Sanders.
She started tutoring her 12-year-old brother more than five years ago, when he was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. Peterson also feels the need to be an example. “I always tell my younger cousins, ‘don’t be like me. I want you to be better than me. Reach beyond what I think is possible. Be in your own shadow, don’t be in my shadow.
Make your own path, make your own mark,’” he said. The two said they feel that they are attending college as much for family and friends as they are for themselves. Sanders and Peterson, who both live in the Englewood community, said that they recognize how fortunate they are. “So many children like us, they’re smart and intelligent, maybe more intelligent, and cannot afford to go to school. Sometimes their education may stop at high school because of financial burdens,” Peterson said.
“We look for those that are actively involved in the community and give back. That, I think is what’s going to make a better world,” Adrian said. The friends are undecided about what they’ll study in college, but Adrian said that Millenium scholars have a knack for contributing, no matter what field they go into.
“We have a lot of doctors, a lot of lawyers, we have heads of non-profit organizations. We have a student who is playing professional baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals%uFFFD Basically, they’re encompassing all walks of life, and they all want to give back to the community.”
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