Boston Scholars Bond at Sargent Camp

This week 40 of Boston’s top high school students were awarded four-year full-tuition scholarships from the Boston University Boston High School Scholarship Program. President Robert A. Brown and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino (Hon.’01) presented the incoming freshmen with the awards in recognition of their outstanding academic achievements at a ceremony in the School of Management Auditorium on June 4.

The Boston Scholars program at BU began in 1973 and has become one of the largest scholarship programs for urban high school graduates in the country. Each year the top students from all of Boston’s public high schools are nominated for the award; after the students apply to BU and go through an interview process, 40 are selected for a full-tuition scholarship that will cover the cost of four years at the University. This year, the total scholarships awarded to the group add up to $5.8 million in tuition.

For several of the students, the scholarship was their only hope of coming to BU. “I wouldn’t have attended without the scholarship, because I don’t know what sort of financial package I would have had,” says Daniel Lopez, a senior at Fenway High School who is entering the College of Engineering. “My family wouldn’t have been able to afford it.”

In addition to the financial benefit, however, the scholars come to BU already part of a community, thanks to a required weeklong orientation that takes place each June at BU’s Sargent Center for Outdoor Education in New Hampshire. There the scholars participate in a number of different outdoor and indoor group activities designed to help them build trust and help one another accomplish difficult tasks. Ruth Shane, the director of the BU/Boston Public Schools Collaborative Office, says she takes the scholars to Sargent so they can get acquainted and form a community.

“The camp experience provides a metaphor for the challenges students face in college, even though it’s a different environment,” Shane says.

Current Boston Scholar Jonah Blustain (CAS’09) says he enjoyed his time at Sargent Camp so much that he became an orientation assistant after his freshman year. He realized immediately the importance of creating a community among the Boston Scholars, he says, because at first students stayed with people from their own high schools — Boston Latin Academy and Boston Latin School, for example, remained on opposite sides of the room. “But by the first night at Sargent,” he says, “everyone is chitchatting by the fire with marshmallows, making friendships that will last forever.”

After spending a couple of nights at Sargent, the scholars return to campus to take four classes at the College of General Studies: Natural Science, Social Science, Rhetoric, and Humanities. Blustain says the classes were very useful in helping him understand what was expected of him in his college courses.

“I can distinctly remember not fully agreeing with a professor’s interpretation of a historical event and writing an essay saying so,” he says. “When I got the assignment back, I was amazed that the professor did not ignore or belittle my points — in fact, he responded to them, and we had a dialogue afterwards. It was then that I realized that college was much different than high school.”

Linel Bello, a scholar from Brook Farm Business and Service Career Academy, says she hopes to meet a lot of people and is looking forward to having the best experience during her time at BU. She thinks being a Boston Scholar will offer those opportunities. “I’m expecting I will get a better relationship with the scholars from this orientation,” she says.

The 2008 Boston Scholars
Priscilla Amado, Brighton High School
Nafiun R. Awal, Boston Latin School
Toufic B. Barakat, Boston Latin School
Christopher L. Bartolome, Boston Latin School
Kristely N. Bastien, Boston Latin School
Linel R. Bello, Brook Farm Business and Service Career Academy
Samantha C. Cheung, Boston Latin School
Joanie Decopian, Engineering High School
Natalya M. Dorokhina, Boston Latin School
Tram T. Duong, Brighton High School
Demitrus I. Glover, Community Academy of Science and Health
Kathleen C. Grueter, Boston Latin School
Sarah B. Hall, Boston Latin School
Kang Sheng He, Charlestown High School
My H. Hoach, Brighton High School
Alexandra Y. Ibarra Carmona, East Boston High School
Tamika D. Jeune, John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science
Ita C. Kane, Boston Latin Academy
Cam D. Le, Boston Latin School
Henry C. Lok, Boston Latin Academy
Daniel Lopez, Fenway High School
Sharra L. Maynard, Boston Latin Academy
Linda Nguyen, Boston Latin Academy
Thien Tai T. Nguyen, Charlestown High School
Faith N. Nwaoha, Jeremiah E. Burke High School
Woodly B. Osias, Boston Latin Academy
Xholion Pelari, Boston Latin Academy
Kim Tuyen T. Pham, East Boston High School
Stephanie P. Raymond, Boston Arts Academy
Luiza D. Santos, Boston Latin School
Nayara A. Silva, John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science
Mason Tan, Boston Latin Academy
Diem Trang T. Trinh, Excel High School
Thanh M. Vo, John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science
Susan S. Wang, Boston Latin School
Eliza A. Williams, Another Course to College
Kim S. Win, Boston Latin School
Matthew C. Yee, Boston Latin School
Fang Yuan, Boston Latin School
Dongxu Zhao, Boston Latin School

Davide Nardi can be reached at dnardi@bu.edu.