Na’Shantéa Miller of Caledon, Ontario, dreamed of getting into Harvard and had many supportive teachers mentors along the way. However, some of them weren’t very supportive.
In an interview with CBC News, Miller said, “For sure, people have told me in the past, ‘You’re not going to get far with a name like Na’Shantéa with an apostrophe, an accent aigu and a capital ‘S,'” says Miller, “and there’s power in words.”
Miller, 24, didn’t too well on the standardized GRE test, but that didn’t stop her from applying to schools such as Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, London School of Economics, the University of Chicago, McGill University, and the University of Toronto.
She was able to get accepted to all of them but she learned that getting accepted is not the same as being able to actually attend. Miller got accepted into the Harvard Kennedy School’s Master in Public Policy, a two year program that costs more than $115,000 CAD per year. Also, she needs to provide the exact amount by June 15 in order for the school to secure a visa for her.
Miller has been able to build up close to $40,000 USD with the help of her parents but is still short of the $75,825 USD goal. She has also applied for several scholarships in the hopes that it won’t get in the way that she isn’t a U.S. citizen.
She had also applied for financial aid at Harvard but wasn’t chosen. When she asked the school about it, they told her that there wasn’t much they could do for her. In a letter the school gave her, she was told: “Regarding funding, we certainly wish we had more aid to award the many fine candidates who apply, but we are unfortunately unable to offer funding to all deserving applicants.”
With only a few weeks left before June 15, Miller is continuing to apply for as many scholarships as possible in order to make it into her dream school.
If you want to contribute, there’s a GoFundMe for Na’Shantéa Miller here.
Feature Image from Na’Shantéa Miller’s GoFundMe
