Senior Jayden Valliant has won the Questbridge National College Match scholarship and a full-ride scholarship to Boston College.
Valliant has been working toward this since the middle of his sophomore year. He has spent countless hours in the library, working in preparation for this.
Through QuestBridge, students apply for a full ride scholarship to one of the 52 partnering colleges. Applicants must go through three rounds in order to actually win the scholarship. Essentially, one must become a finalist first before they have a chance of winning the scholarship. Thus, not many applicants actually win the full ride.
“When I found out I was a finalist, in my heart of hearts I believed I was going to get a college, so once I was a finalist, I knew that from there, it was just up from there,” Valliant said.
Boston College was not his first choice though.
“To be fully honest, I was scared. I didn’t like it, and I think from the video my mom took, everyone can tell that I was a little shocked and surprised, and a little upset because I really wanted UChicago or Columbia in New York, and those were my two places that I wanted to go to; I wanted to go to New York; I wanted to go to Chicago — I didn’t even consider Boston. Also, I forgot I put Boston on there–that was just a random thing I did honestly,” Valliant said.
At Boston College, Valliant will be majoring in biochemistry.
“I was originally wanting to major in bioengineering because I wanted to make hospital equipment, but they don’t have that major, so biochemistry was the closest to it. If I want to get my masters, biochemistry would be a good base for wanting to go get a bioengineering major, and then I could still double major in a different type of engineering,” Valliant said.
With that, he wants to create hospital equipment.
I want to make hospital equipment. One, because I think it helped me when I was in the hospital when I was younger and I just saw how those things were so important to my health, and I was like ‘I wanna know how to make those’. I want to make new technology that can help the new people,” Valliant said.
Once at Boston College, Valliant intends to involve himself in many different activities on campus.
“I’m planning on joining the tennis team, the intramural tennis team, because I don’t think I’m good enough. I’ll probably join a few other clubs. I know if they have a radio show, I know I want to do that; that sounds really fun to me. I think I’m going to have a really fun time being away from home and just figuring out stuff about me that I couldn’t here,” Valliant said.
Jayden advises those who are interested in applying for the QuestBridge scholarship to be determined and really find the thing that makes them self stand out.
“Put in a college you don’t expect to go to. Just in case, put in something that wouldn’t be your first choice. You never know, and they were right because I got Boston,” Valliant said.
