On 26th May 2023, St. Paul’s School hosted a special graduation ceremony and ball for the graduating Upper 6 class of 2023. Amongst the graduates, there was a St. Paul’s Foundation scholar, Ana Claudia. She applied to one of the earliest Scholarship Programme rounds, in 2019, having joined the school in 2020.
This graduation marks a special moment in her life as well as for the Foundation, which supported her academic journey since the start in Form 5, during the pandemic. Ana was very active in school during her time at St. Paul’s School and has been both a student leader and Sports prefect.
In the ceremony, Ana was awarded a prize for achievement in Portuguese Language and Literature. Her after-school life, for now, points to the North: She has received a conditional offer for Macalester College in Minnesota, USA, with a full-ride scholarship!
Read below a touching testimony from Ana’s mom, Claudia, shared with us right after the Class of 2023 celebration event. She highlights her daughter’s trajectory at St. Paul’s School coming to an end:
“Ana brought her remarkable trajectory at St. Paul’s to a perfect end. Those were the three most intense and surprising years we’ve ever had. The amount of attention, respect, value and affection the school and her peers had towards her was really special.
She felt she was part of the school from the very beginning, even though she knew most pupils had studied together since they were kids and already had their “best friends”… We never would have imagined it would be this way. Everyone opened space for her in such a natural and sweet way, it was easy to think she had always been a part of St. Paul’s.
The school changed not only her life, but our whole family’s. Doors that once seemed impossible to reach are now wide open, and I’m sure Ana will do whatever it takes to seize this new opportunity the foundation and the school have granted her.”
Ana Claudia has shared details about her experience as a St. Paul’s pupil in our Annual Report. “I took piano lessons, got involved in school sports and went to Rancho, where I met students from other schools and from throughout Brazil. This experience allowed me to get to know my school friends better, which helped me settle in.”, says Ana. As her years as a lioness were coming to an end, she was able to put into words how the scholarship programme transformed her life. “I see myself having an impact on the world and contributing my ideas and solutions to some of the challenges that the world faces.”
You can read all about Ana’s journey and more about other foundation scholars in our latest Annual Report.