I believed I was destined to fail because of the pressures from my family and my peers I didn’t take school seriously until I reached my senior year. Although The Scholarship Academy had already helped me win a $50,000 DC Achiever Scholarship, a string of college rejection letters discouraged me so I decided to just go to community college and stay at home, even though my ACT scores were high. Ms. Johnson and The Scholarship Academy refused to give up on me. Even though they were no longer partners with FLY (Facilitating Leadership in Youth) they reached out to me and gave me hope. Within 2 weeks, they had connected me with an admissions counselor at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee and before I knew it, I was on my way to one of the top 10 HBCUs in the country with a complete financial aid package. My life will never be the same.