Ghana’s 2018 best A-level student gets accepted into Princeton, Yale and Caltech

Leo Ohene Afriyie-Buabeng, a former student of Ghana Christian International High school, won the best A level student in Ghana in 2018 with 4A* in the exams as well as the best Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology in the PSGN (Partner Schools Global Network) awards program held by the British Council in 2018.

Leo this year has added another significant academic milestone to his already stellar record by gaining admission to three of the top universities in the world: Yale, Princeton and California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

All three schools offered him scholarships but Leo has decided to join Caltech's class of 2022 and is set to start his first semester on the California campus in August 2019. “It was a dreamlike experience but selecting where to go wasn’t easy. I chose Caltech because of its strong STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) and undergraduate research focus. I’m really humbled by my recent accomplishments, 4A* in Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Math and my score on the SAT. My parents put their blood, sweat and unflinching support into making these happen.’’

Caltech is one of the top Technological Research Universities in the world. The highly selective school only admits less than 9% of over 8,000 applicants each year from across the globe to its undergraduate program. The school occupies a hardcore niche in STEM research and boasts of 37 Nobel Prize laureates as well as houses and manages NASA's Jet propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which constructs and operates planetary robotic spacecraft and conducts earth orbits and astronomy missions.

Leo's admission came on the back of an impressive score of 1500 out of a total of 1600 in the SAT test (global admission exams) and was part of the top 1% of test takers in the world to get such a score in 2018. Leo attributes this achievement to the assistance he received from AFEX Test Prep Ltd, an educational consulting company with branches in Accra, Takoradi, Kumasi (Ghana) and Nairobi (Kenya) that prepares students for the SAT exams and assists them in University applications. At AFEX, Leo was introduced to a rigorous and holistic curriculum and joins several other Ghanaian and Kenyan students making their ways to the United States for higher education. Leo believes this opportunity will be the road for him towards making a significant contribution in expanding the frontiers of science and technology and might be the next Ghanaian to win the prestigious Nobel Prize.