Universities offering full scholarship to 18-year-old

Beyazıt Şenbük - DİYARBAKIR

A high school student who made it to the “100 Rise Global” list of brightest students in the world last year has received full scholarships from nine universities, including Harvard and Stanford.

Born and raised in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır, 18-year-old Gül Karen Aça is a senior at Bahçeşehir College. Her mother is a music teacher, and her father is a math teacher.

Aça has been offered full scholarships by Harvard and Stanford, as well as John Hopkins, Northwestern, Berkeley, Toronto, Georgia Institute of Technology, California Santa Cruz and Duke universities.

Answering questions from journalists in an interview, Aça stated that she has not decided which university to choose yet and that the key to her success is constantly being involved in projects and competitions rather than just studying for exams.

Thanking her family for their support, Aça said, “One cannot receive success without the contributions of their families.”

Aça noted that her academic and social responsibility projects were effective in her high rate of acceptance from universities in the US and Canada, as they holistically evaluate how students have put their high school years to good use.

“More than 50,000 people applied to Rise Global. I managed to be among the top 100 students with a presentation about climate and war-induced migrants in the world. This year, we became a finalist in the Earth Prize competition held in Switzerland by being among the top 10 teams with the renewable bioplastic we produced,” she stated.

Since Aça has not yet chosen a university, the scholarship opportunities she will benefit from are not clear for now. However, if she decides to get admission to Harvard or Stanford, she will benefit from a scholarship that covers her education, all materials, accommodation, meals and airfare to and from Türkiye for four years. This figure will reach $500,000 (10 million Turkish Liras) for both schools.

Aça explained her goal to study neuroscience “in a broader and interdisciplinary way,” and she plans to focus on the impact of the structure of the human brain on societies.