Hall wins top scholarship from College Board

A senior at Northampton High School received the surprise of a lifetime this week, and a $40,000 boost toward her college education.

Asia Ortiz Hall was called forward during a school gathering and informed she had won a $40,000 scholarship through BigFuture, a national program operated by the College Board. The award is the largest scholarship offered through the program and is presented to students across the country each month.

Ortiz Hall, 17, plans to attend Virginia Tech this fall, where she intends to study engineering. While she is currently leaning toward electrical engineering, she said she is still exploring her options within the field.

“I think I saw it on my Gmail, and then I just followed the steps,” Ortiz Hall said when asked how she entered the scholarship drawing. She completed planning activities through BigFuture’s website during the fall, not expecting that months later her name would be selected.

The BigFuture program is a free online platform designed to help students explore careers, research colleges, and identify ways to pay for higher education. Rather than requiring a traditional application, essay, or minimum GPA, students earn entries into monthly scholarship drawings by completing college-planning steps on the site, such as taking a career quiz, building a college list, or saving scholarship opportunities.

According to Aaliyah Myers of the BigFuture team, 26 students nationwide receive the $40,000 scholarship each year. In addition, hundreds of $500 scholarships are awarded monthly. If a student is not selected in a given month, their entries roll over into future drawings.

Myers confirmed Ortiz Hall is the first Northampton student to receive the $40,000 BigFuture scholarship.

During the brief interview, Ortiz Hall credited Mr. Robert Broyden, her English teacher, when asked which educators have helped guide her academic journey.