Heading to the Ivy League

Heading to the Ivy League: Scholarship, aunt's care help Detroiter pursue dream

The Detroit News 
By Shawn D. Lewis
June 6, 2008

BLOOMFIELD HILLS -- Adam Alexander Hamilton is only 18, but already has an accomplished resume.

Hamilton, who graduates from Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School today, has studied philosophy in China and played the title role in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." He is the first high school student to intern in Ford Motor Co.'s design department. And he is one of only 28 students in the nation to receive a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation scholarship, which will pay $30,000 a year toward his tuition at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school.

But unlike most of his classmates, Hamilton does not come from a privileged background. He was raised by a widowed aunt on the west side of Detroit, in a neighborhood with pockets of desolation, where discarded syringes and condoms can be found in fields next to abandoned houses.
"I can't forget where I come from," said Hamilton, proudly toting his yearbook in his backpack. "I
want to reach back and help others. I want to pay it forward one day."
Hamilton gives plenty of the credit for his success to his aunt, Joan Hamilton, who loved and nurtured him, his older brother Anthony and her own two daughters while battling rheumatoid arthritis and working full-time in community health.
Joan Hamilton sent all the children to parochial schools, but she realized early that Adam, who can be seen cuddling Big Bird in an early family photograph, had something special. She enrolled him in Deror Montessori Center in Oak Park, and then Friends School in Detroit.
"You don't buy as much, and you learn different ways to make meals work," Joan Hamilton said. "But I felt it was my responsibility as a parent. You do what you can to make them have a better life than you had."
Adam's parents divorced shortly after his birth, and his Aunt Joan has raised him since he was 6 months old. She worked to keep the children safe from the neighborhood's bad influences and keep her family unit close.
"My aunt shielded me from a lot of things," Adam Hamilton said. "I couldn't play with the other children, so my older brother Anthony and I played together."
Tuition at Penn isn't cheap. Undergraduates pay $37,526 a year, and the school will provide Hamilton with the financial aid he needs.
But it's the prestigious Jack Kent Cooke Foundation scholarship that ensured him an Ivy League education. The nonprofit champions high-achieving, lower-income students, and Hamilton was chosen from a field of 700 applicants. Michigan's only other winner was Jesyka Palmer of Palmyra.
"When I applied, I thought it would be a one in a million shot," he said.
"It's like winning the lottery or the sweepstakes. I wouldn't be where I am now if my aunt and cousins had not shown me it was possible."
His parents are not constants in his life. They do not know about his scholarship, and it is not a subject he is comfortable discussing.
"My mom calls during the holidays, but she lives out of state," he said. "I talked to my father a few months ago. I'm not going to forget them."
Adults who know Hamilton say he's mature beyond his young years.
"When I'd speak to him in class and outside, I had the pleasure of sensing I really was speaking to a young adult, and not one struggling out of childhood," said David Linder, his former English teacher at Cranbrook.
His mentor at Ford, Kevin George, said Hamilton not only stood out as an intern, but also taught him some things.
"He is a very bright and personable young man," said George, a design manager. "And he's a millennial, I'm a trailing boomer, and we're learning from each other. This is not a one-way street."
Hamilton said his overall goal is to become a well-known architect.
"I would like my name to echo in the world, and there are various ways to do it, including helping others," he said. "If there's a way for me to have the Hamilton name out there, I want to pursue it."