Bethlehem high school scholarship

BARDSTOWN, Ky. (WDRB) -- A Nelson County student could soon start the college career she's been dreaming of at one of the top schools in the country — and won’t pay a penny.

Mikiah Livers-Bryant is a senior at Bethlehem High School in Bardstown. When she is not in class, she is on the basketball court or soccer field.

“Sometimes it’s tough, like, doing homework with practices and getting home late,” Livers-Bryant said. But studying doesn’t take up a lot of her time. “I don’t really have to study too much except just read over my notes right before and then I am fine.”

Like most seniors, she’s weighing her college options and decided to apply for the Questbridge Scholarship, which pairs students from low-income backgrounds to higher education.

Bethlehem high school student 2

Many of the students at Bethlehem want to stay close to home in Kentucky, but Mikiah had bigger dreams — and applied.

“She said she was on board I was really excited cause I thought ‘great!’ cause I think she is going to be just a great candidate,” said Bethlehem School counselor Rita Koontz.

The program submitted her to the schools Livers-Bryant wanted to go to. Out of 14,000 applicants, 10% of them made it to a final round of essays.

Princeton responded and offered Livers-Bryant a full four-year scholarship worth more than $300,000 — about $74,000 a year, which includes classes, room and board, books and even money for a new computer.

Koontz says many Bethlehem students prefer to stay in Kentucky and go to schools close by but Livers-Bryant wanted to see how far her grades could take her — and she has other schools interested. Yale and Vanderbilt have also reached out to interview her.

Although she is a straight-A student, she has not made a decision as to which school she will attend — even though Princeton gave her 300,000 reasons to go there.

“I started looking at it more and I am going to visit in April and I am starting to like it, so I might go there still,” Livers-Bryant said. “All the work I have been doing up until that point paid off was nice. It was eye-opening that hard work does pay off, really.”

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