Help Send USAP Zimbabwean Students to College

August is always a bittersweet month.  We are really excited for 38 USAP students who are on their way to university, but of course sad to say farewell to them and no longer to have their happy noise at the office.  This year is the biggest crop of USAP students ever in the history of the program to get full funding to start studies.  Toegether these remarkable 23 young women and 15 young men have earned over $7.6 million dollars in scholarships to attend universities in Canada, Ghana, Mauritius, Rwanda, Scotland and the United States. 

Many of you are USAP alum and know first hand how stressful it is to be accepted with a full scholarship but at the same time lack the finances you need for all of the hidden enrollment costs sitting between you and the first day of college. Without your support, these 38 students would not be on their way.  Your donations have funded their standardized tests and financial aid forms, their immunizations and medical exams, visa and SEVIS fees and for half of them, their air tickets as well.  They join us in being extremely grateful to you for your donations, no matter that size, that have enabled them to take advantage of life-changing opportunities to study at some of our world's top colleges and universities.

We are very excited with the admissions and scholarships that this year's USAP Cohort have earned.  At the present time we have 34 USAP students who will be starting at colleges and universities outside of Zimbabwe in Canada, Ghana, Scotland, and the United States of America.   They will be studying at universities which include:  Amherst, Berea, Brown, Bryn Mawr, Carleton, College of Wooster, Davidson, Grinnell, Harvard, Kalamazoo, Northwestern, Penn State, Smith, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, the University of Rochester, Vanderbilt and Warren Wilson.   Two students will go to study at Brescia University College and the University of Toronto in Canada.  Six students are off to Ashesi University in Ghana and one to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.  We are still waiting to hear for admission decisions for Africa Leadership University in Rwanda and for January for MasterCard Scholarships at University of Pretoria and University of Cape Town.  

This 2017-18 cohort of students have been busy in the past few months preparing for their next chapter - they have been reading, writing, learning code, doing internships, working at paid jobs, and volunteering in the community.   They also have started to be busy with the logistics of pre-departure preparation - immunizations, visa applications, medical exams, and arranging flights.  We are thankful to your support that is allowing all of this to happen - without the USAP Access Fund that we have raised through GlobalGiving, we would not be able to cover these costs which are far beyond the financial reach of USAP families.

We are very proud of all of our students, their hard work and their achievements, and smile thinking of the power of their collective education to bring positive change.  The future is bright!  #usaprocks