Gates Foundation Offers Full Rides To 44 CPS Students
(CBS) -- College of your choice -- all expenses paid!
Forty-four Chicago Public Schools students are living that dream today, thanks to Bill Gates' Millennium Scholarships.
CBS 2's Roseanne Tellez talked to five recipients, all from one South Side school.
Kyra Kemp describes the scene when she learned the good news: "My mom was on the phone paying our cable bill, and she just started crying, screaming. The Comcast man, he started screaming. It was just a joyful moment."
Some Kenwood Academy students are recipients of a free ride, for the whole ride, to the college of their choice.
All are great students and spent hours agonizing over their essays together in the school's college lab.
Counselors encouraged them to dig deep and share.
"They're the ones who helped me express my personal adversities that I was going through. It was hard for me to open up about some of this stuff," Quinasia Douglas says.
The scholarships will allow these students to put financial worries aside and shoot for the stars.
Khensu-Ra Love wants to work for NASA one day.
There has been sacrifice. Ibfihal Elfaki says she has no social life.
"I have my entire life ahead of me for that," she says.
Fifty-two thousand students applied, and only 1,000 won.
One of the students Tellez interviewed wants to attend USC. Three are going to Spellman and one to Brown.
