Nigerian-American Alabama teen Rotimi Kukoyi, who appeared on Jeopardy!, has been accepted to 15 prestigious colleges and received $2 million in scholarships.
According to Good Morning America, Kukoyi has been accepted to the prestigious institutions Harvard, John Hopkins, Yale, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Emory, the University of Virginia, Rice, Duke, Case Western Reserve University, the University of Alabama, UAB, Washington University in St. Louis, Auburn University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The high school senior and the first Black National Merit Scholar at his school told the news outlet that he was inspired to apply to numerous colleges after joining the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament in 2018. He met exceptional students from around the U.S. while still a freshman.
“It was [a] really fun experience but also put me in contact with some pretty cool students from across the country,” Kukoyi told GMA. “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.”
The Hoover, Ala. teen eventually decided to attend UNC Chapel Hill, as he accepted the university’s Morehead-Cain Scholarship, the oldest merit scholarship program in America. At UNC, he plans to pursue a public health career and said his experience witnessing “health inequities” amongst Black people during the pandemic influenced his decision.
“COVID really sparked [my interest in public health] because that was the first time that I really saw how clear the health inequities were,” Kukoyi said. “African Americans had a much higher chance of dying from COVID than white Americans … it was almost like there were two separate pandemics impacting our nation, and we saw [some people] marginalized and impacted way more.”
His trailblazing accomplishment isn’t surprising, as he’s the only Black male student in all his classes at school and was in student government. He also plays soccer, which is a popular sport in his parent’s home countries. However, he told GMA that he wants his legacy to be about helping others.
“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.”
