Come June, one lucky school will get some good news.
Jahmir Smith, a 17-year-old whose Twitter bio reads “humble,” will pick from more than 30 colleges, including all eight Ivy League schools.
Though the Sanford, North Carolina, teen hasn’t made his decision yet (as a junior, he doesn’t have to commit until signing day in January), he’ll likely let someone know in June.
“I know what I’m looking for. I want to go to a school that’ll have me set up for life first other than just football,” he told NBC News. “I want to go to a school that’ll help me be a doctor first, and I want to maybe play in the NFL.”
If academics are his priority, he’s in luck: His choices are pretty stellar.
Though he has enough credits to graduate this year — and a 4.43 GPA (yes, you read that right) — Smith will finish out his last football season with his team in December.
The offers started coming in December, but it was his first Ivy League letter, from Princeton University, that started a frenzy in his family.
“I almost wrecked my truck, I was that excited,” his mother, Monique McLean told the News & Observer of getting Jahmir’s call. After that, the offers kept coming. And with a score of 25 on his ACT, no one was surprised at Jahmir’s success.
“I’ve always been good in school, so I never really thought I’d get a scholarship or anything. I thought I’d just do well and go to college, said Smith.
His mom, a single parent and a nurse, is “worked to death all the time,” said Smith. Her relationship with her patients is in part what has inspired him to pursue medicine.
And though his mom — along with his uncle and his coach — are helping him through this process, no one is pushing one option over another.
“They aren’t biased towards any school,” said Smith. “They just tell me the facts.”