Another SIS student is awarded QuestBridge scholarship

Saipan International School senior Frederic “Mac” Guintu is awarded a QuestBridge scholarship. (SIS)

Saipan International School senior Frederic “Mac” Guintu was awarded a QuestBridge scholarship on Dec. 3, 2020, making this the second time in a row that an SIS student has been awarded a QuestBridge scholarship.

Guintu will attend Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, beginning in the fall of 2021 on a full scholarship.

SIS’ first QuestBridge recipient last year was also accepted to Emory University.

“Emory University is one of the nation’s top research universities and the No. 1 ranked pre-[medical] program in the [United States], which is very interesting to Mac,” said SIS counselor Whit Altizer. “We are very proud that Mac has been accepted into the class of 2025 at Emory. This marks the second year in a row that an SIS graduate has been accepted to Emory. They must like Geckos!”

Guintu himself said, “All the hard work and effort I’ve struggled through during the 17 years of my life has paid off so well. I’ve never been more excited for my future when I opened the update saying I matched to Emory at 6 in the morning. The days before that were full of [anxiety] and sleepless nights, but after the message, it felt as if I were lifted to the moon and the stars and I shared this happiness with my friends who supported me through it all.”

QuestBridge is a national program that connects high-achieving high school seniors from low-income backgrounds with full four-year scholarships to the nation’s top colleges.

In addition to Guintu, SIS had two other finalists, Cindy Kim and Oliver Lee, who will receive free applications from a variety of partner colleges and become eligible to forward their National Match Application to schools that will accept it for QuestBridge Regular Decision.

This year’s Match Scholarship Recipients come from 48 states, including the District of Columbia, as well as the territories of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Puerto Rico. 

These outstanding high school seniors have an average unweighted GPA of 3.93, and 94% are in the top 10% of their graduating class. Of the students who reported standardized testing, 82% scored above 1260 on the SAT and 84% scored above 27 on the ACT. Financially, 95% come from a household with an annual income under $65,000, and 87% qualify for free or reduced-price school meals. The majority of these new QuestBridge Scholars—78%—are among the first generation in their families to attend a four-year college in the United States.

“Mac is an incredible student who has thrived at every challenge that has been put in front of him,” said SIS headmaster Dr. Ron Snyder. “He is our Student Council president, has represented the CNMI three years in a row at the National MathCourt Championships where he placed 10th one year. He is an AP Scholar with Distinction, a National Merit Scholarship finalist, one of the founding members of the CNMI Model United Nations team and an AP Capstone Diploma Candidate. His independent research on the causations of internet addiction, grounded in boredom analysis studies, promises to be very interesting. We are very proud of his achievements and wish him well at Emory where we are certain that he can maximize his academic potential.” (PR)