Raiders host local Yale-bound student

Originally published on Silver & Black Report on May 20, 2014


Oakland’s Akintunde Ahmad, the Oakland Technical High School student who recently committed to attend Yale University, toured the Raiders facilities on Tuesday.

“I’m thankful and glad they extended the invitation to me,” Ahmad said after the event. “Born and raised in Oakland, you know, Raider Nation, always been a raiders fan so I’m happy everyone’s here to give me a warm embrace and just allow me to be here and to meet everyone and be in the store.”

Ahmad grew up in Oakland and has recently drawn media attention due to accumulating a 5.0 GPA while attending Oakland Technical High School, scoring 2100 (out of 2400) on the SAT em route to earning acceptance offers from Yale, USC, UCLA, Howard, Chapman, Cal Poly (SLO) and Cal State East Bay, Brown, Columbia, Northwestern, while also being waitlisted by UC Berkeley and Georgetown, according to SFGate.

“It never really occurred to me until after it happened,” Ahmad said about his success in school. “I always strived to be the best I could be and not really compare myself to others, and it just turned out that way. I guess hard work paid off.”

‘Tunde, as his friends call him, ultimately chose Yale while on the Ellen Degeneres show.

‘Tunde says his family didn’t even know his decision until they heard him make it on The Ellen Show. He picked Yale because of the “community” feel it provides.

While at the Raiders facility on Tuesday, ‘Tunde received a tour of the Alameda grounds and was also allowed to pick an item of his choice from the Raider Image. In the store, ‘Tunde will be escorted by Raiders wide receiver Rod Streater, linebacker Nick Roach and cornerback Taiwan Jones.

Ahmad hopes that his success can be an inspiration for others to arrive for greatness, no matter the situation.

“People are going to say you can’t do things; people are going to judge you a certainly way based on your appearance,” Ahmad said. “But in the end of the day it’s up to you to do what you want to do and do what makes you happy and do whatever you can to get where you want to be.”

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