Akintunde Ahmad, a 17-year old Nigerian student at Oakland Tech in Oakland, who got a 5.0 GPA and 2,100 on the SAT, has received numerous offer to study in some of America’s top colleges like Yale, Columbia and Brown.
While some people are still in shock over his accomplishments, the star student athlete notes in a sfgate.com report that he has also gotten used to surprised reactions when people find out about his stellar academic performance.
“People looking at me funny is so common that it doesn’t stick out for me anymore” Ahmad said.“It’s something that I’ve gotten used to”.
Ahmad, who is one of six children acknowledged he has gotten offers to attend college at Yale, Brown, Columbia, Northwestern, the University of Southern California, UCLA, Howard, Chapman, Cal Poly and Cal State East Bay, adding that he has been waitlisted by UC Berkeley as well as Georgetown.
According to him, some private school students who, claimed his achievements resulted from easy classes and lower academic standards at public schools were silenced after seeing his SAT and AP scores, noting that he didn’t receive any private tutoring to supplement his public school education.
His father, Mubarak, has worked as a mechanic at AC Transit for 20 years, while his mother, Zarina, works as a principal at Piedmont Avenue Elementary School.
The parents said they work very hard to keep their children on the right path.