Bethsahida Harrigan
Two Central High seniors received an early Christmas present that may be hard to match. The two have been awarded full scholarships to prestigious universities. Bethsahida Harrigan and Kathleen Cimino are recipients of QuestBridge 2017 National College Match Scholarships that will provide them early admission into their select university with a guaranteed full, four-year scholarship including tuition, room, board and other college expenses.
Bethsahida “Betsy” Harrigan was accepted into Vanderbilt University to study psychology with a pre-med emphasis. The estimated value of the award over the next four years is $283,468.
Kathleen “Katt” Cimino was accepted into Wesleyan University to study English/French. Ms. Cimino would like to one day be an international journalist. The estimated value of the award over the next four years is $280,220.
The two outstanding seniors were two of 918 outstanding students selected from 15,606 applicants to the scholarship program this year. QuestBridge is a national program that pairs high-achieving seniors with highly selective college partners including top liberal arts colleges such as Amherst, Colby, Hamilton, Pomona and Willams and exceptional research universities such as Brown, Columbia, Duke, University of Chicago, Stanford, Vanderbilt and Yale.
The National College Match is a highly competitive process and according to a release from QuestBridge, these recipients have impressive achievements in high school. Academically, the 918 College Match seniors have an average unweighted GPA of 3.92, they have scored between 1350 and 1490 on the SAT and between 29 and 33 on the ACT, 95 percent rank in the top 10 percent of their class. QuestBridge also reported that 76 percent of the new QuestBridge Scholars are the first generation of their families to attend a four-year college.
Kathleen Cimino