Pre-College Initiative Student of the Year (Male)
Jonathan A. Thompson
Senior, Judson High School, Converse, Texas
One might think that maintaining a spot on the Judson High School varsity basketball squad would be enough to occupy whatever spare time a serious scholar-athlete might have. But for Jonathan Aviv Thompson, the hours spent on the court as a power forward for the Judson Rockets are just a break in a busy, productive routine.
Thompson, 17, has spent his teenage years assuming increasingly responsible roles, helping black students far beyond his South Texas home. Academically, Thompson is no slouch, and his late night studying shows in his grades. He has maintained a 3.77 average, ranks 35th out of 652 Judson seniors, earned a membership in the National Honor Society and scored a perfect 800 on the math portion of the SAT IIs.
He also tutors others. After leading successful sessions with his younger sister and her friends, Jonathan asked others in the San Antonio City Wide NSBE Jr. Chapter to join in a formal tutoring program. They contacted every public and private middle school in the San Antonio area offering their services. The chapter now tutors about 50 seventh and eighth graders each week in algebra and geometry, in two-hour sessions over winter break. The four-year program earned Jonathan a Presidential Volunteer Service Award, Bronze Level, from President Obama.
Jonathan has been chair of NSBE’s Region V Jr. Executive Board for the past two years and is the immediate past president of his NSBE Jr. chapter, now one of the nation’s largest. His summer internships included work at the University of Texas at San Antonio in biomedical engineering, an area he hopes to explore when he enters the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his father’s alma mater, in the fall.
Roger Witherspoon is a journalist and author based in New York.