Six Wright Students Named Jack Kent Cooke Transfer Scholarship Semifinalists

“For our students to be selected, it shows that our students are of high caliber, they are high achieving students who are very much qualified to receive a scholarship like this,” said Susan Calabrese, the director of the transfer center. The Jack Kent Cooke undergraduate transfer scholarship is a prestigious national scholarship that awards up to $55,000 and is renewable for 2-3 years.

On March 5, 485 students from across the country were chosen as semifinalists. 14 students from City Colleges of Chicago have been chosen to be semi-finalists, and six of them are from Wright College. The six semifinalists are Kyle Chmielowski, the editor in chief of the Wright Times, Andriana Chyzhyk, Thuy Dang, Julia Kantor, Alex Koci and Armando Roman-Mendoza.

 “This is not the first time or first year that Wright College students have been nominated for this award. It speaks volumes of our students, their persistence, the work, the support they get here at Wright College, also about our faculty and the way they support our students as well,” said President Oroz, who sent out an email to all students and staff congratulating the semifinalists and emphasizing the support that they received along the way from faculty and staff, the Advising and Transfer center, and the Tutoring and Writing Center.

What's next in the process? The finalists will be announced in May. In 2025 the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation awarded the scholarship to 90 students. Calabrese gave an encouraging message to the semifinalists.“You are already a winner because you've been chosen as a semifinalist. On behalf of the advising and transfer team, we want to recognize and congratulate you, our semifinalists. And please know that we are here to support you in this process as you wait to hear if you will be a finalist,” Calabrese said.  

Calabrese shared some advice for the semifinalists. “Please use this as an opportunity to consider those schools that you may not have thought about before, those selective schools that are going to be interested in you and learn more about you simply because you are among the top students of the nation, having been selected as a Jack Kent Cooke semifinalist,” Calabrese said.

A big qualification for the Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship is the requirement of recommendation letters, whether from a faculty member, adviser or an administrator working closely with a student on a college project. For students graduating next year you can apply for the scholarship in October and make Wright proud!

A banner in the campus center celebrates the semifinalists. Photo Credit: Kyle Chmielowski.