Hempstead High School seniors earn $1.4M in scholarships in 2016

Hempstead High School announced Friday that graduating students this year earned about $1.4 million in scholarships, more than double the roughly $600,000 it recorded last year,

The high school announced that its top two graduates plan to attend Ivy League schools.

“We are extremely proud of this year’s graduating class,” said high school principal Stephen Strachan, who noted that scholarship money for the school was the strongest on record. “We look forward to continually encouraging our students to pursue higher education opportunities.”

The two students graduating at the top of the school’s Class of 2016 - valedictorian Steven Nino and salutatorian Pablo Correa - will be attending Princeton University and Dartmouth College, respectively. Both credit their chemistry teacher, Dr. Emmanuel Ogogo, for inspiring them.

“A lot of kids look up to him because he’s a very successful person, and he only got there because he pushed himself hard,” said Nino, who plans to study either chemical engineering or computer science. “He pushes kids hard; I think that’s what a lot of kids need.”

Correa, who will be the first in his family to attend college, took two classes with Dr. Ogogo: Regents Chemistry and AP Chemistry. “The Advanced Placement course really helped me to learn how a college course works, because he taught it like a chemistry course at a college,” said Correa. “It reaffirmed that I want to do medicine.”