A strong academic record and personal talents have won Jada Marsh, a senior at Homewood-Flossmoor High School, an all-expenses-paid scholarship for four years at Northwestern University.
Through QuestBridge, an organization supporting motivated low-income students, Jada was paired with Northwestern. Her scholarship, worth an estimated $80,000 annually, will cover tuition, room and board, and fees.
QuestBridge started contacting Jada as a junior offering help with college essay writing and other college-prep programs. At first, she wasn’t sure of what QuestBridge had to offer her, but H-F College Placement Counselor Kevin Coy encouraged her to consider the program and file an application for QuestBridge’s Match Scholarship. It pairs top students with outstanding universities.
Jada had looked at other schools, including the University of Illinois and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She decided to rank Northwestern as her No. 1 Match Scholarship choice because it was an excellent school in the Chicago area.
Jada, the daughter of Jessica and Michael Marsh of Homewood, is the youngest of the family’s five boys and two girls. Her older siblings have all attended college and earned associate degrees, but Jada will likely be the first to earn a bachelor’s degree.
“My dad would say, ‘You guys are all smart, but Jada’s just determined.’ I am a self-motivated person,” she said. When H-F joined the rest of Illinois in shutting down during the COVID-19 pandemic, she was a student who was able to thrive despite not having classes in person.
She admits that “encouragement from others helps, but if I don’t have encouragement from others, I want to do things for myself.”
Her academic record is proof of that. As a freshman, Jada took one Advanced Placement (AP) course. She continued to challenge herself, heaping on more work. Now the senior is taking six AP courses. Her schedule includes AP literature and composition, government and politics, psychology, economics, Spanish 5 and statistics.
She considers herself a well-rounded person, but math and science aren’t her strong suits. She’ll be leaning toward English, majoring in communications and public relations, at Northwestern.
H-F’s varied curriculum and extracurricular activities offers students “so many opportunities and things you can be involved in,” she said. “It kind of really does prepare you for college. You get to explore so many things.”
She’s had many great teachers at H-F. One that stands out is her freshman math teacher Robert Chapel. She remembers him sharing with students his own route through college.
“He became kind of a mentor to me. He got kicked out of college, didn’t apply himself. He’s a well-rounded man. He knows what it’s like to not be a good student and then be a good student. And he’s a great teacher,” she said.
Jada’s been a member of the girls field hockey team at H-F. She didn’t know anything about the sport, but an H-F teacher spoke at James Hart School encouraging them as incoming freshmen to try out for the team. She’s played field hockey each fall season at H-F.
“It’s a great sport,” she said. “It’s underrated.”