The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation recently announced 571 high schoolers as semifinalists for the Cooke College Scholarship Program, including Santa Fe High School student Rebecca Giner.
Giner and the other semifinalists were selected from applicants representing over 4,200 high schools from all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam and the Virgin Islands.
This summer, Giner will move to Manhattan, New York to attend Columbia University on a four-year QuestBridge scholarship. She plans to live her dream of majoring in mechanical engineering, while exploring New York City and maintaining her hobbies of figure skating and ballet.
“Being chosen as a semifinalist for the Cooke College Scholarship Program is an incredible honor as it serves as a reminder of how far I’ve come and how much I can achieve with perseverance,” Giner wrote in an email. “It represents not just my hard work, but also the sacrifices my family has made to get me here, and it motivates me to keep striving toward my goals to create a future that honors their efforts.”
The Cooke College Scholarship provides “last dollar” funding, covering up to $55,000 per year to pursue a bachelor’s degree at any accredited undergraduate institution after other forms of financial aid have been applied to the cost.
With a goal of helping exceptional students with financial need to graduate with minimal debt, the Cooke Foundation selected semifinalists with a new standard of an unweighted minimum 3.75 GPA requirement.
Cooke College Scholars are selected for exceptional academic ability and achievement, financial need, persistence, leadership and service to others. Students must be current high school seniors.
The 2025 Cooke College Scholarship recipients will be announced in late March.
“These students have shown remarkable dedication to their academic pursuits, and we’re honored to recognize their achievements as we continue our mission of making college accessible to exceptional students with financial need,” Seppy Basili, executive director of the Cooke Foundation, said in a press release.
This year marks the Cooke Foundation’s 25th anniversary.
“We’re incredibly proud of how the Cooke Scholar community has evolved in twenty-five years of community-building,” Natalie Rodriguez Jansorn, the Cooke Foundation’s vice president of scholarship programs, said in the release. “Congratulations to these students for thinking big about their futures and earning the distinction of becoming a Cooke College Scholarship semifinalist.”
Learn more about the College Scholarship Program here and sign up to be notified when the next application opens in fall 2025.
Editor’s Note: this story has been updated with comments from Giner.