After graduating high school with acceptance letters to numerous colleges and millions of dollars in scholarships, Aaron Williams and his mother, Ericka Smith, had to sort through a mountain of college acceptance letters.
The 18-year-old from Chicago, the youngest of seven children, received acceptance letters from 83 colleges and counting and earned more than $8 million.
“They’re still coming in daily,” his proud mother told Live5News. “He gets emails, so they’re just a little bit behind.”
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It all began with a dream. On his first day of class as a freshman, the Bogan High School graduate and straight-A student made a daring remark.
“Came in to the principal and said I would be the class of 2025 valedictorian, and now it’s safe to say that I have done that,” Williams recounted.
Williams did become his class’ valedictorian, but he sees it as a reward for many years of hard work.
“To know that actually hours of me applying for these scholarships and having to log on my school links and just putting in effort and having a community to support me and guide me through this whole process, it’s kind of relieving to know that it actually paid off in the long run,” Williams said.
The young genius achieved another of his goals: earning more scholarship money than one of his older siblings, who earned $1 million.
“It kind of pushed me harder, because you know how siblings have that sibling rivalry to see who can do better and stuff like that? It kind of motivated me in a way to see how far I can go with it,” Williams said.
He picked Northern Illinois University, where he received a full-ride scholarship. He intends to major in electrical engineering.
“He is who he is because of community, because of principals who cared, because of those biological aunts that cared, the non-biological ones,” his mother remarked.
Even yet, Williams still aspires to graduate from NIU as the valedictorian of his class.
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