By: Anony Walton
My name is Anony Walton; I am currently a rising sophomore at the once “undefeatable, undeniable” Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia. I am writing to ask for your help.
Last fall, I was awarded the Morris Brown Presidential Scholarship, which covered the cost of tuition and living expenses for high school students with a GPA of 3.5 or higher and 25 ACT/1100 SAT score. I began pursuing my bachelor’s degree after admissions representatives told me that I would enjoy traditional college life and that regardless of the college’s accreditation status, I would be able to continue my academic career beyond undergrad.
I was sadly mistaken and misled.
Being a student at Morris Brown College is nothing like I expected. I quickly realized that this was not somewhere I could spend the next four years of my life. The pace of the classes is not challenging and I constantly find myself serving as a tutor to everyone. Morris Brown is a suitable fit for students looking for a slower pace or non-traditional students, but not for me.
In November 2018, I began looking to transfer to another HBCU.
The uphill battle began sooner than I could prepare for it. All of the schools where I wanted to apply told me that they could not accept any of my credits, and I would just have to start over due to the lack of accreditation.
I can not start over. I have 35 credit hours worth of work that I would have to redo. I even looked into schools that would honor unaccredited degrees, thinking that they might honor my credits as well. I soon found out that policies had changed and without accreditation, my degree and credits would be meaningless.
I am writing this letter as a way to share my story with the hope that it will have some effect on others’ lives. My dream is to become a defense attorney or public defender for adolescents, to create a rehabilitation center for victims of domestic violence, and to open a community center for inner-city children offering focusing on college preparation and trade training. This has been my dream ever since I graduated as a valedictorian from Bradford Academy in Detroit last summer.
After attending the Battle of the Bands weekend in Atlanta, I could not see myself anywhere but another HBCU. My ideal scenario would be to graduate and to pursue a joint JD/MBA program at Texas Southern University, but I need to change my current undergraduate path so that I can be more adequately prepared for the rigors of the program.
I know that there is so much more I would accomplish if I was in an environment conducive to my personal and professional growth. I graduated high school with a 4.2-grade point average and scored 1120 on the SAT. I maintained this standard throughout my freshman year and earned a 4.0 GPA at Morris Brown.
I am more than willing and able to put in the work to be successful because I know that success is not a straight and narrow path. What happened to me doesn’t have to happen to another high school student. I hope that my story reaches you and can begin a discussion about my future, and the future of others like me.
