An 18-year-old girl named Mahaylia Griffith has earned acceptance from four different Universities in the United States and was awarded a scholarship worth 21,000 dollars by Howard University.

Griffith, a teen from Arima who is a sixth-form student of Bishops Anstey and Trinity College East was awarded a Capstone Merit Scholarship to attend Howard University. She applied to seven universities and was accepted into four universities.

She was awarded a partial scholarship which only covers part of her tuition needs.  Griffith received 15,000 dollars in an academic scholarship and $6,500 in a needs-based scholarship.

“I obtained a partial scholarship and a needs-based scholarship that covered two-thirds of my tuition.Tuition is usually US$31,000 (each academic year) at Howard and I received $15,000 in an academic scholarship and around $6,500 in a needs-based scholarship,” she said.

Griffith mentioned that she will major in Musical Theatre at Howard University’s Chadwick Boseman School of the Arts. She said it was not always her goal to attend a university in the United States and had her heart set on attending a university in the United Kingdom.

But after doing her research she felt Howard was the right fit for her.”“I saw the kind of community that HBCUs, which are predominantly black schools have.  it was very comforting to see,” she said.

Griffith stated that she was inspired to pursue musical theatre after watching the Grammy, Tony, and Emmy award-winning musical Hamilton which notably features a culturally diverse cast.

“I was exposed to a world of performing arts with characters that looked like me and the story was portrayed through rap, R&B, and jazz. The comfort I felt from watching the musical gave me a sense of hope for a possible career in the musical theatre field,” she said.

Griffith said she hopes to make her West End and Broadway theatre debut by age 26 adding that she wants to expand a once white, male-dominated industry to the black diaspora and Caribbean region.