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-Press Release, Oxford Preparatory School
Emily Osborne, a senior at Oxford Preparatory School, has received the North Carolina Teaching Fellows award to attend Meredith College.
Emily Osborne, a senior at Oxford Preparatory School, has received the North Carolina Teaching Fellows award to attend Meredith College. (Photo courtesy OPS)
Emily, the daughter of Kevin and Christy Osborne of Henderson, NC, will enter Meredith in the fall of 2021 where she intends to pursue a teaching degree with a focus on Exceptional Children. During her time at Oxford Prep, Emily has been named to the Directors’ list each semester, earned Beta Club recognition, and has been a key member of Interact.
As a North Carolina Teaching Fellow, Emily will receive up to $8,250 per year in a forgivable loan if she commits to teach in a STEM or a special education area. The program is specifically designed to attract high-quality teachers to low-performing schools by offering an accelerated loan forgiveness schedule for Teaching Fellows who agree to teach in a low-performing school in North Carolina.
To be eligible for a teaching fellows award, each high school student must first meet a strict level of high academic performance including:
- a minimum unweighted high school GPA of 3.0 and have scored at least a 24 on the ACT or a 1,170 on the SAT if the student has fewer than 24 college credit hours or,
- a minimum of a 2.7 cumulative GPA if they have more than 24 college credit hours.
In addition to the stringent GPA and standardized test score requirements, applicants were also evaluated on leadership and experience, a written essay and mission statement, and for those moved forward as a semi-finalist, an in-person interview.
Only those chosen for the final interviews held in late February were eligible to be chosen to receive a teaching fellows scholarship.