Success Breaker: Meet The Nigerian Student in the US With 5.0 GPA, 2,100 SAT Score and Offers to Schools

          
Akintunde Ahmad just sees himself as a regular 17-year-old, but the Oakland, Calif., teen has stunned everyone with his 5.0 GPA and 2100 SAT score, which have led to his acceptance at some of the country’s most prestigious universities. “Like, my whole life, people have been telling me to stay on this path and everything will fall, the cards will fall like you want them to,” Akintunde told KGO-TV, proudly tipping a hat to the Oakland public school system.
Akintunde walks around with pictures documenting his astounding academic achievements saved on his smartphone, not because he wants to show off but because few believe that the teenager, who sports long dreadlocks, has actually reached such lofty heights. He says he is often judged for his appearance.
ContinueAppearance hasn’t stopped schools like Yale, Brown, Columbia, Northwestern, the University of Southern California, UCLA, Howard, Chapman and more from courting the teenager, who also plays three instruments and is a great baseball player. According to KGO-TV, Yale is talking to him about possibly joining its baseball team.
Akintunde has his heart set on either Yale or Brown and is interested in pursuing premed or prelaw.
Ahmad, who is one of six children, explained that he received no private tutoring to supplement his public school education.His mother, Zarina, works as a principal at Piedmont Avenue Elementary School and his father, Mubarak, has worked as a mechanic at AC Transit for 20 years. They practice Rastafarianism and say they work as hard as they need to to keep their children on the right path.
Unfortunately, however, not all of their children have taken Ahmad’s path.
His older brother Azeem was sentenced to 41 months in prison in March 2013 after he was caught carrying guns in a federal sting operation in 2012.
The star-student said two months before the sting operation he had declined an invitation from his brother to hang out at a friend’s house, because he had to complete and essay for school. Five people were later shot at the house including his brother who was shot twice.
“We got the same mother, the same father, just a different path,” he said. “I feel like it’s a setback for him, but sometimes it takes that kind of shock to grab your attention.”
“There’s plenty of people I know who have been killed,” he said. “I could write a list starting in elementary school of all the people we grew up with who have been killed.”
“I could have easily been caught up in that life. You don’t have to be a bad person to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said.