Now in its third year, the Yale Young African Scholars Program (YYAS) for outstanding high school students will run in three countries in 2016 – Rwanda, Ghana, and Zimbabwe. YYAS is a free week-long academic and leadership program designed for exceptional high school students interested in attending university in the United States. The goal is to support young leaders as they seek to access opportunities both at home and abroad, while challenging them to engage with the most pertinent African and global issues of our time. High school students of all African countries are eligible to apply, with travel grant support available for those from outside the host countries.
A signature program of Yale's Africa Initiative, Yale Young African Scholars (YYAS) will bring Yale undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff to the programs, where they will collaborate with local educators and partners to support talented students as they set their sights on studying at top universities in the United States.
YYAS will be made possible through the generous support of Higherlife Foundation, founded by Zimbabwean-born entrepreneurs and philanthropists Strive and Tsitsi Masiyiwa to promote basic education among thousands of disadvantaged children and to support young talent development by offering scholarships to gifted students across the African continent.
Higherlife Foundation's gift will help support an expanded the YYAS program for 300 high school students in three countries, for each of the next three years. The students will become part of a robust mentorship network in which they are paired with local organizations as well as U.S.-based college students from Yale and peer schools, who will help advise them throughout their American college application process.
The Yale Young African Scholars Program was first conceived by African undergraduate and graduate students at Yale, who desired to create a forum for talented high school students on the African continent that combined academic programming with preparatory workshops focused on higher education in the United States.
Prospective YYAS applicants must be citizens of an African country and currently attend school on the African continent. Applicants will have 2 years left before completing high school at the time of the program and be between the ages of 14-18.
The 2016 application is available online at africanscholars.yale.edu and the deadline to apply is March 31, 2016. There is no cost to participate in YYAS. Admission is highly selective.
For more information on the Yale Young African Scholars, please visit the website. The Higherlife Foundation website can be accessed here.