West Catholic Preparatory High School Student Awarded Prestigious Gates Millennium Scholarship

Jasmine Mays of the Class of 2016 is the tenth student from West Catholic to earn this award; West Catholic has produced more Gates Scholars than any other high school in Pennsylvania

The Office of Catholic Education (OCE) and Faith in the Future (FIF) are proud to announce that Jasmine Mays, a senior at West Catholic Preparatory High School (WCPHS), has been awarded a 2016 Gates Millennium Scholarship.

The Gates Millennium Scholars Program selects 1,000 talented students each year to receive a good-through-graduation (B.A., M.A., and Ph.D.) scholarship to use at any college or university of their choice. Gates Millennium Scholars are given academic support as well as personal and professional development through leadership programs throughout their college careers.

Jasmine currently maintains a 4.0 GPA while serving as president of both the National Honor Society and the Student Council. She attended Saint Francis de Sales Parish Elementary School (SFDSPS) prior to WCPHS. She is actively involved in the community-at-large through the Girl Scouts and Philadelphia Futures, a college connections program that seeks to break down barriers that exclude low-income first generation to college students from post-secondary academic success. She also volunteers at the Saint Francis Inn, a soup kitchen ministering to the poor and homeless in the City of Philadelphia. Jasmine was also awarded a Presidential Scholarship by Villanova University, where she will matriculate in the fall.

“Jasmine has demonstrated tremendous determination and resilience and is very deserving of this recognition on so many different levels. Needless to say, the West Catholic Prep family is proud of her accomplishments and the support she has received from her teachers, guidance director and, especially, her mother. Jasmine is a great ambassador for West Catholic Prep and the entire Archdiocese of Philadelphia,” said Mr. Jim Gallagher, principal of West Catholic Preparatory High School.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has a proud history of successful students named as Gates Millennium Scholars. Since 2013, Archbishop Ryan High School, West Catholic Preparatory High School, John W. Hallahan Catholic Girls’ High School, and Roman Catholic High School for Boys have produced Gates Millennium Scholars.

Since the scholarship program’s inception in 1999, Jasmine is the tenth Gates Scholar to come from WCPHS, more than any other high school in the state of Pennsylvania. She is also the eighth Gates Scholar from WCPHS also to have attended Saint Francis DeSales Parish Elementary School. A complete listing of Gates Scholars who attended both SFDSPS and WCPHS is below.

Emmanuel Ghebremariam (WCPHS Class of 2004)
Dawit Ghebremariam (WCPHS Class of 2007)
Sara Ghebremariam (WCPHS Class of 2008)
Haven Ogbagiorgis (WCPHS Class of 2008)
Patrick Osuagwu (WCPHS Class of 2009)
Jichang Ni (WCPHS Class of 2009)
Imani Richburg (WCPHS Class of 2014)
Jasmine Mays (WCPHS Class of 2016)

Dawit Ghebremariam received a Neumann Scholarship while Sara Ghebremariam and Jasmine Mayes received Josephine C. Connelly Honors Scholarships that enabled them to attend WCPHS.

Those scholarships were provided by the Connelly Foundation, which has a long tradition of supporting Catholic education in the Archdiocese. Its philanthropic efforts seek to foster learning and to improve the quality of life in the Greater Philadelphia area. The Foundation also contributes to local non-profit organizations in the fields of education, health and human services, arts and culture, and civic enterprise.

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Editor’s Note: For information about Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, please visit www.catholicschools-phl.org. For information about Faith in the Future, please visit www.faithinthefuture.com. To learn more about West Catholic Preparatory High School, please visit www.westcatholic.org.