After obtaining 19 full-ride scholarship offers from universities across the United States and Canada, one Nigerian teenager must feel as though she has the world at her feet.
According to admission records and estimates of financial aid grants, Victory Yinka-Banjo, a 17-year-old high school graduate, received more than $5 million in scholarships for an undergraduate programme of study.
CNN reports Victory relishing her academic prowess, saying “It still feels pretty unbelievable. I applied to so many schools because I didn’t even think any school would accept me.”
Victory was born in Nigeria to Adeyinka Banjo, a private-sector supply chain executive and senior lecturer at the University of Lagos, and Chika Yinka-Banjo. The Ivy League schools Yale College, Princeton University, Harvard College, and Brown University offered Victory potential full scholarships.
The University of Virginia, Stanford University, Johns Hopkins University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were among the other US universities to extend scholarship offers.
Both the University of Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson Scholarship and the University of British Columbia’s Karen McKellin International Leader of Tomorrow (KMILOT) Scholarship were made available to Victory in Canada.
“Their admissions processes are extremely selective,” Victory added. “They only accept the best of the best. So, you can imagine how, on a daily basis, I have to remind myself that I actually got into these schools. It is surreal!”
Academic strides
Victory, a senior prefect in high School, became well-known on the national stage in late 2020 after she received all As in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
The Nigerian youngster had received the University of Cambridge International Examination’s (CIE) “Top in the World” rating for speaking English as a second language a few months prior. Victory did quite well in the Cambridge IGCSE exam, earning As in each of the six topics she took.
Victory told CNN that her exceptional accomplishments are the result of her perseverance.
“They have made me truly feel proud about the hard work I have put into several areas of my life over the years. I am slowly beginning to realize that I deserve them,” she said.
The teenager remarked that her multiple scholarship offers “have made me stand taller, smile wider, and pat myself on the back more often.”
Victory stated her desire to get a degree in computational biology. She has been courted by numerous famous schools, but she is still debating which one to attend.
“I am still doing research on some schools that are at the top of my list, like Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Duke, Johns Hopkins, and just trying to compare and contrast all of them thoroughly,” she told CNN.
An inspiration to Nigerian youth
Victory’s mother, Chika, says her daughter’s story could inspire other young Nigerians.
“It is noteworthy that she is not one of the Nigerian-Americans who often get into these schools because of their advantage of being born and bred in the US. She completed her secondary school here [in Nigeria]. It would be great if her story can be used to inspire the youths of our country,” she told CNN.
Victory credits her academic success story to faith, parental guidance and discipline. She currently spends some of her free time tutoring other university admission seekers – through the radio – on key subjects such as math, English language, biology, chemistry and physics.
