Baltimore City Seniors Surprise With Full-Ride Scholarships to McDaniel College

When Skye Hammond found out she would not owe a dollar for four years of college, she embraced her mother, Tennaya Foster, right there at Western High School. Hammond is one of five Baltimore City seniors who received surprise full-tuition scholarships to McDaniel College, with recipients coming from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, Benjamin Franklin High School at Masonville Cove, Green Street Academy, and REACH! Partnership School, each earning a spot in McDaniel's incoming Class of 2030 and a scholarship covering all four years of tuition, valued at approximately $200,000.

On April 3, representatives from McDaniel College, Baltimore City Public Schools, and the CollegeBound Foundation visited the students' schools to deliver the news in person. A fifth student at REACH! Partnership School had been surprised separately on March 18, with the remaining four surprised on March 24 at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, Benjamin Franklin High School at Masonville Cove, and Green Street Academy.

Izabela Gonzalez and Alannah O'Mara-York from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute were surprised by McDaniel College representatives with full-tuition scholarships. Ace Foly Ehke also received the scholarship as a Poly student. Hammond's profile stands out among the cohort for its depth of civic and medical engagement: at Western, she is a class officer, member of the National Honor Society, and a community engagement club member; an aspiring nurse, she served as a youth ambassador for VALUE Baltimore and completed a paid internship as a Baltimore Alliance for Careers in Healthcare Fellow at Mercy Medical Center, where she discovered a passion for labor and delivery.

Since 2008, McDaniel College has partnered with the CollegeBound Foundation to provide full-tuition scholarships to Baltimore City high school students, with McDaniel's Admissions Office annually interviewing students from CollegeBound Foundation-staffed Baltimore City public high schools for the award. That pipeline has now delivered full-ride opportunities to City Schools students for nearly two decades, a sustained institutional commitment in a city where college affordability remains a persistent barrier.

The five seniors were surprised April 3, joining the incoming Class of 2029 — though McDaniel's own homepage now lists this current cohort as part of the Class of 2030, reflecting the most recent cycle of the program. The surprise visits, which included McDaniel's mascot the Green Terror alongside school and foundation officials, have become a signature moment of the annual partnership, turning hallways at Baltimore City high schools into scenes of celebration.

For Western High School's Hammond, the scholarship represents more than tuition relief. Her internship work at Mercy Medical Center placed her inside a labor and delivery unit as a high schooler, sharpening a career direction that four years at McDaniel's Westminster, Maryland campus will now help her pursue at no cost to her family.