Orie Ulu, a senior at the prestigious Choate Rosemary Hall boarding school in Connecticut, has her sights set on five top universities thanks to a scholarship that would cover most of her expenses.

Orie Ulu, a resident from D.C. who is currently attending boarding school in Connecticut, was recently named a QuestBridge scholar. (Courtesy photo)

If accepted as a QuestBridge scholar, the 17-year-old won’t have to pay tuition at any of its partner schools. The scholarship program is a national nonprofit based in Palo Alto, Calif. that connects the nation’s most exceptional, low-income youth with leading colleges and opportunities.

As such, Ulu is applying to Princeton University, Columbia University, Stanford University, the University of Chicago and the University of Southern California. Out of 15,606 QuestBridge scholarship applicants, just 5,759 National College Match Finalists were selected.

“I was actually pretty surprised because I knew that there were literally thousands of other applicants I was competing with and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be picked over someone else,” Ulu told the AFRO via email.

The finalists are an elite group, as 88 percent rank within the top 10 percent of their class and have an average grade-point average of 3.89 on a 4.0 scale, according to the QuestBridge website.

As well, 78 percent of the finalists qualify for free and reduced lunch and come from homes with a $34,390 median income. Close to 30 percent of the finalists are Black.

Ulu has also applied to Northeastern University in Boston — the scholarship wouldn’t cover her education there, but she’s interested in the school because it would let her work while attending class.

The 17-year-old hails from the Takoma neighborhood and graduated from D.C. Prep in 2014.

Choate, a coeducational school in Wallingford, Conn. with an enrollment of 859 students, boasts an average class size of 12 students and counts John F. Kennedy, Michael Douglas and Ivanka Trump as graduates.

Orie’s path to Choate started in the sixth grade, after a representative from A Better Chance, a scholarship organization that helps Black students attend top private schools, visited D.C. Prep.

The teenager had moved to the District a year earlier with her mother, Clarice and her 13-year-old sister, Ugo, following her parents’ divorce.

Orie admits she wasn’t transitioning very well and said boarding school was the perfect chance to get away from home while still getting an education.

“Boarding school offered me independence and that was something I was desperately craving at the time,” she said. “My father had attended boarding school when he was a young man living in Nigeria but neither of my parents had ever been to an American boarding school.”

The teen secured a full scholarship from Choate her freshman and senior years, and earned a partial scholarship the other two years — she said she selected the school based on its academics.

Her mother, Clarice, works as the special assistant to the founder and CEO of D.C. Prep and manages its central office, but Choate isn’t cheap. Tuition and academic fees for the 2017-18 school year total $57,420, according to Choate’s website.

Orie is excelling at the school and has spent all four years on its dean’s list. She is still adjusting to some of her fellow students’ unprecedented wealth. She confessed that she felt like an outsider her freshman year, due to some students’ casual displays of wealth.

“I eventually came to realize that this was normal for these kids and I would have to find a common ground that wasn’t based on wealth or socio-economic status,” she said. “Of course I did eventually find a group of friends that had a background similar to mine and I felt comfortable with them.”

Her mother said providing emotional support to her daughter so far away from home is her first job.

They talk once a week, or more, depending on Orie’s schedule. She stays in touch with her daughter’s teachers, college counselor and advisors. On visits, she brings some of the African dishes that her daughter doesn’t get in Choate dining halls — the worst part about not living at home is the food, Orie said.

Nonetheless, Orie is enjoying her freedom at the school. Not only does it prepare her for college in the way day schools just can’t, but she’s also getting opportunities she said she wouldn’t have had if she’d remained.

For example, Orie has been studying Mandarin Chinese and studied abroad for nine weeks in China. While there, she got to see Tiananmen Square, the Great Wall and several provinces.

“I am currently in my fourth year of Chinese and I am happy to say that my reading, writing, speaking, and listening comprehension have all improved since my trip to China,” she said.

She’s also active on Choate’s Hispanic Latinx Forum as well as in dance, theater and the junior varsity softball squad.

Wherever she ends up going to college, Orie knows one thing for sure: she will be majoring in psychology.

“I want to become a psychiatrist or psychotherapist because the human mind fascinates me,” she said. “I want to study the human brain and understand why it is we as humans do what we do. I also have a passion for helping people and I feel that as a psychiatrist I could help people and better understand the human condition.”