Alabama Teen Jeopardy Star Accepted Into 15 Universities, Earns Scholarships

Teenage Jeopardy star Rotimi Kukoyi has been accepted into more than 15 universities and has received more than $2 million in scholarship offers.

Rotimi, who is a high school senior is the first Black National Merit Scholar at his school, and was accepted into universities including the Ivy Leagues Harvard, and Yale.

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The Alabama teenager said that he was motivated to apply to the esteemed institutions after appearing on the Jeopardy Teen Tournament as a freshman in 2018 and meeting students from across the country.

"It was [a] really fun experience but also put me in contact with some pretty cool students from across the country," Kukoyi said on Good Morning America.

"A lot of them are older and they're like seniors or juniors that applied to many prestigious schools (and) a lot of them are attending prestigious universities now. So that was kind of my original inspiration to apply to those universities," he added.

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The teenager got acceptance from all the amazing institutions and from these he selected the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as his chosen school to pursue a career in public health.

He was also awarded the university's Morehead-Cain Scholarship - the oldest merit scholarship program in the country.

The Alabama teenager decided to pursue his career in public health becuase of pandemic and his experience in helping the Alabama Department of Health get residents vaccinated.

"Covid really sparked [my interest in public health] because that was the first time that I really saw how clear the health inequities were," Kukoyi said.

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Rotimi says that during the pandemic times, he observed that the African Americans had a much "higher chance of dying" from Covid-19 than white Americans, adding that it was like there were "two separate pandemics" impacting the US.

All set to attend his university, Rotimi says that with his journey he hopes to help and inspire other students out there. 

"A lot of kids that I talked to didn't think they could apply to the bigger schools or get into the bigger schools or were concerned about the costs," he said. "But there are other resources available to students to kind of help with that."

The soon-to-be UNC student also shared that the university even offers "much more extensive financial aid" than state schools, which is why more young people should apply to them.

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Rotimi has a very inspiring story, the teenager is a child of immigrants and plays soccer. He was in his school's student government. Still, despite all his achievements, he says he wants to be known for helping people, especially in his community.

"I want my legacy to be one that's focused on impacting other people. I suppose a lot of people in the pursuit of their own goals can kind of forget what it's all about," he said.