Chicago high school seniors celebrate College Decision Day

CHICAGO — Some high school seniors were recognized Wednesday for their college acceptance rate and scholarship awards.

The senior class at CICS Longwood High School in Washington Heights consists of 93 students and they’ve collectively earned over $68 million in scholarships.

The class has a 94% acceptance rate into four-year colleges and universities.

Wednesday is College Decision Day at the school when those seniors will announce where they plan to head to next.

This year has been extremely tough for the students at the high school. One of their fellow classmates, Maurice Clay, was shot and killed outside the school back in January. He should be part of this graduating class.

The kids have been pushing through that pain and trying to move forward, amongst them is Aaron Powell.

Powell alone has earned $3.8 million in scholarship funding, telling WGN News he plans to head to Loyola University and follow in his mother’s footsteps and become a nurse.

“My mom is a nurse, she’s been nursing at Schwab Rehabilitation for a long time. My father, he had to go through a few surgeries, so I’d always look at the nurses around him and see how they had so much joy to help him. That pushed me to be a nurse myself,” Powell said.

The top 10 scholarship earners will also be honored at the school Wednesday.

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