This summer, Program Officer Jessica Jones-Lewis interviewed two recipients of the “In the Game” Logan Scholarship, a Kelly High School program led by Brighton Park Neighborhood Council (BPNC) and funded by the Reva and David Logan Foundation. You can read the first interview here.
The Impact of the Logan Scholarship
The Logan Scholarship is a scholarship for 4 years of undergraduate education awarded to six to seven women at Kelly High School each year to close the financial gap that remains after all their financial aid and scholarships are applied toward their undergraduate education, which otherwise prevents many young people from graduating. The $20,000 scholarship is distributed in installments of $5,000 per year.
Since the scholarship started in 2015, 61 students have received the Logan Scholarship, with 24 active recipients currently enrolled full-time in college. All active scholars maintain GPAs between 2.5 and 4.0, reflecting their continued academic achievement. So far, three students continued education after the scholarship and completed their graduate degrees.
Each scholarship recipient has a Student Support Coordinator who offers individualized assistance through monthly one-hour case management meetings. These sessions address academic progress, personal well-being, study strategies, time management, mental health, and financial stability, connecting students to needed resources. Through these efforts, the Logan Scholarship continues to strengthen college readiness, support scholars holistically, and maintain strong collaboration with school leadership.
In addition, all scholarship recipients can make requests for assistance with all the unexpected costs associated with attending college through the scholarship’s emergency fund. In the past, students have used this fund to pay for books, iPads and laptops for school, groceries, transportation, exam fees, and graduation attire.
This scholarship is helping bright, ambitious young women complete their undergraduate degrees. Like our next interviewee, Kelly Lin, many of these students want the opportunity to pursue graduate degrees, but lack the financial support. If you are a funder and would like to help expand this program, please reach out.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Jessica: What is your major and year in college? And what are you up to right now?
Kelly: I am a senior at University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. I study Political Science on a Pre-Law track with a double minor in Public Relations and Legal Studies. Right now, I am currently active as a Board Advisor for the Vietnamese Student Organization, formerly the fundraising chair. And I’m also currently a member of the Asian Law Association. It is essentially a law organization to help students in the Asian community connect to lawyers, get an idea of what law school is like, and professionally develop. That’s pretty much all I’m currently involved in.
Esmeralda (Student Support Coordinator): Kelly also joined as an Alumni Ambassador this summer at Kelly High School assisting the post-secondary team help recent alumni and rising seniors transition into their last year and freshman year of college.
Jessica: I love how you said that’s pretty much all, because that’s a lot. It’s tremendous. I want to hear from you: why college after high school?
Kelly: I’ve always wanted to pursue the legal field and become a lawyer or attorney. So far, I love college and I’m really glad I went because I’ve gained a lot of valuable experience that’s not just in academics. It has helped me grow as a person and learn a lot of life skills that I believe will help me long term.
Jessica: Why law?
Kelly: In high school I did 4 years of policy debate. I would go to summer camp to help prepare for the upcoming seasons, up until I was a senior. I really love the aspect of researching and preparing the evidence of a debate in order to win. That spilled into long term career plans like being a lawyer, because that’s very similar. Studying it in college and having a legal studies minor made me enjoy learning about different laws and the system.
Jessica: How did high school prepare you for college and in what ways did you feel unprepared?
Kelly: I think my high school at Kelly College Prep provided a lot of resourceful college career coaches that helped me gauge what college is really like and what resources the school provided, such as scholarships, which is how I found out about the Logan Scholars. They provide a lot of opportunities to apply for scholarships and they always have someone to back you up in that sense. In that part, I do think my high school was very effective in helping me get an idea of what college was like and giving me the resources that I need to benefit me in college.
The one thing I think didn’t prepare me for college was the style of learning. In high school you have your schedule and your activities or extracurriculars you’re involved in. All of that is from 7:45 to 3, longer if you have extracurricular activities. But in college you have to set your own schedule and you have to manage your own time in order to involve yourself in all these activities. It’s a skill you have to learn while being in college or other experiences you might have.
Jessica: What was your first year of college like? You went from Chicago to Urbana Champaign, a whole new place.
Kelly: I guess freshman year was kind of rough, but I assume that’s a common theme that happens for a lot of students that are out of state or far away from their families. I did experience having to be by myself for the very first time without my parents. But it wasn’t that bad in the dorms because they have dining halls, so I wasn’t starving or dying.
I think the main issue I had was being away from home and not having that support system of family and friends. I did leave a lot of friends behind. And adjusting to the new environment is hard. There are thousands of students on my campus and you do feel kind of left out, or you think, “Where do I belong?” I didn’t know many people coming into college and I didn’t really know what organizations to join, so that did kind of scare me away.
The very first semester I only focused on academics. I didn’t push myself to join other organizations until my spring semester. The first thing I learned my very first semester was how to adapt to going to different buildings for classes and how to study for them, because the way these classes work, they’re very fast paced. I focused on just learning how to study effectively and how to have a social life so it’s not just studying. And adapting to a new environment.
Jessica: What motivated you to get out there and join groups in the second semester?
Kelly: When I only focused on academics and had a pretty small circle of friends, I didn’t enjoy university as much as I’d like. I was contemplating transferring back to a school in Chicago, like UIC maybe. But I was like, “Well, you haven’t tried joining these groups your other friends are a part of,” because a lot of my friends were in the Vietnamese Student Association, which is the organizations I ended up joining and being very committed to for three years. So, I pushed myself to try new things and I think that benefitted me the most because that’s when I really started to experience the college life. I made a lot of new friends from different backgrounds, whereas before I was only friends with a small circle of friends from Chicago. That expanded my horizons and connections and that’s when I ended up gaining confidence personally and professionally, too.
Jessica: How specifically did the Logan Scholars program support you before you went to college, while you’re in college now, and how do you hope it will support you after college?
Kelly: I would say that the Logan Scholarship helped me a lot in providing me a student support coordinator, because they have a lot of expertise in college. They encouraged me to look into more resources that the college provides. That’s when I started to learn how to be more independent and reach out to my resources on my own rather than being dependent on somebody.
They help me a lot with finances, because college is very expensive. I come from a low-income household. Even though I have a lot of financial aid, there are still a lot of expenses outside of tuition like books and rent. The Logan Scholarship was able to help me offset a lot of financial burden. I was able to get reimbursements from the university to help pay for my apartment and housing and stuff. Esmeralda really encouraged me to request for funds if I really do need it. She let me know about a lot of stuff that Logan Scholarship helps me with that I didn’t think they focused on, like reimbursing for books which are really important for my classes and stuff like that.
Going forward, I do also want to pursue a masters, so I feel like having to pay for graduate school is very expensive. For FAFSA, you can’t really apply for financial aid if you’re a graduate student; you can only take out loans and that’ll be really expensive. One thing I would hope the Logan Scholarship will focus on is to have more support for the alumni—maybe another smaller program that provides smaller funds to subsidize some of the financial burden that grad students will have to face. And for people who already graduated, maybe the Logan Scholarship can provide some career opportunities in case they’re needing help to find a job or other issues they might have.
Jessica: How did participation in the Logan Scholarship program differ from other supports you have utilized while in college?
Kelly: Compared to other scholarships, the Logan Foundation provides reimbursements for a lot of assets that people don’t usually help you with, like books, groceries, and gas. It makes me think the Logan Foundation really does care about their students’ wellbeing—not just education, but personally, too. They want to make sure we can not only afford going to college but that we can survive the other expenses that other scholarships don’t really tend to focus on.
Jessica: You shared that it was hard for you to leave home. What has your family’s experience been like during your college years?
Kelly: They were a lot more chill with it. They were like, “Oh, I can finally get time away from my kids,” they would joke about that. But they do miss us sometimes, obviously. They want us to come home for break, they would get upset if I said I wanted to go on vacation.
I do think the one thing that they’re very grateful for is the fact that I don’t have to pay for college, so they don’t have to worry about that really expensive part. They work very hard and they make low-income wages which is perfectly fine, because they still try to make ends meet to support me and my brother. My older brother also doesn’t have to pay for college because he has his own scholarships. They always say that they’re pretty lucky to have two kids that offset some of their financial burdens.
They don’t really speak English well, so my brother and I translate for them and help them deal with a lot of stuff like taxes or translation services, and filing for government programs. I think without us being there it’s a lot harder for them to manage by themselves, so that does worry us. But we try to help them as much as we can despite being miles away from them.
Jessica: How has your college experience changed your family’s ideas or perceptions of college, if at all?
Kelly: I would say going to college made them realize, “Not being with my kids is kind of difficult,” and it’s kind of both ways. We just miss each other’s presence and stuff like that. They realized they can’t depend on their kids forever, so they try to learn things for themselves. It’s both ways for me and my brother too—if I’m not home, I have to learn how to take care of myself, cook, clean, and live independently with my other roommates.
Jessica: What are your long-term goals and aspirations, even thinking beyond law school?
Kelly: I want to get a masters. I don’t want to go straight into law school. I’m very interested in the Human Resources aspect of things. I think having a master’s in HR would also help me be able to work a few years before going straight to law school since I don’t want to take out a lot of loans. A lot of my peers go straight into law school and they always tell me it’s so stressful and they wish they could have taken a gap year. They go from graduation straight into intensive studying. I would definitely want a break before going straight into law school.
Jessica: Why an HR masters specifically?
Kelly: Based on my internships. I interned at a state representative’s office and it felt a lot more like providing resources and helping constituents. I also worked at my high school this last summer where I helped give a lot of students resources to help them be successful. I’ve always enjoyed doing that kind of work, not just for students but all age groups. At the office I had to work with a lot of older people from the Chinatown community because they don’t really speak English, and I helped them with filing for bus cards and other stuff. That made me interested in that field.
Jessica: Are there any other things that you want to share about your experience, starting in the Logan Scholars program up until where you are now?
Kelly: The Logan Scholarship is very good at reaching out to its students monthly, which I think is very important because anything can happen in that one-month span, like midterms or an emergency. The student support coordinators really care about their students and they want to make sure their students have everything they need to be successful in college. Even if a student might not be as responsive, they still follow up. Working at my high school during the summer, I got to see what Esmeralda does for her other students. I think that’s very important and helpful.
Jessica: I appreciate your candor and time sharing your experience. Do you have any questions?
Kelly: How does the Logan Scholarship keep up with alumni?
Esmeralda: There is a huge need for transitional support, so that’s what I’m working on right now with current graduate students. There’s a lot of resources through BPNC and the Brighton Park Neighborhood Network. Sometimes I help connect them if there’s a job-related request or somebody wants to intern somewhere, or looking for scholarships or additional aid. Something that we did recently with recent graduates was help them pay for certificate programs or smaller funds that related to continuing their education through the special request funds. Sometimes we were able to help during the summer if they needed a specific class to get their double major.
In the past, a lot of students weren’t taking advantage of the special request funds that we had. I think mainly it was a cultural thing, like being Latino or Asian American, which is why I was encouraging so much for students to take advantage of that support, because we always had leftover funds from the semester or the year before. So that’s a way that we used to be able to pull funds to support master’s programs. But now, because we have been more consistent with using those funds, we’re more limited in supporting tuition-based funds outside of undergrad. I’m hoping maybe in the future that could change.