Mahamat Djour, a Westfield High School (WHS) senior, was selected for a full four-year scholarship to the University of Notre Dame through the QuestBridge National College Match program.
Students apply to the program to potentially be matched to one of 40 highly selective universities around the country. Students can list up to 12 universities on their end (Mahamat listed three), then the colleges each choose the students they are interested in, and possible matches are made.
Out of 14,926 applicants, only 1,127 students were chosen to receive this scholarship.
Mahamat is the oldest of eight children and is from Chad. He is involved in WHS Executive Government, Dance Marathon, Speech and Debate, Cross Country (he earned a semi-state invite this year), Track, DECA, National Honor Society, Spanish National Honor Society and he tutors in math, science and Spanish through his own program called “Mahamat’s Classroom.”
At Notre Dame, he will major in Global Affairs, Political Science and Economics. In fact, he wrote his college essay about his future studies in Global Affairs without knowing that he will be taking part in the inaugural Global Affairs program at Notre Dame.
He hopes to minor in Arabic, French and/or Spanish. He has been able to take advantage of and earn credits in many of the AP classes at WHS, which will free up his college course load for study abroad in Spain, Italy and/or France.
His future goal is to return to Chad and become the President with the priority of ridding the country of corruption in the government.