Building up her image, Alena Wicker is garnering attention for her acceptance to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she will begin medical school in 2024. She shared the joyous news with her nearly 44,000 and growing Instagram followers, along with readers of prominent magazines like Forbes and Ebony. She graduated from high school at 12 and has already begun her higher ed journey taking undergrad classes at Arizona State University and Oakwood University.
Alena Wicker owes her massive success to her mother, discipline, and what she calls “extremely good time management skills.” Although she has attended public school at times, she spent most of her school life trotting the globe with her mother, Daphne McQuarter. Her mom fostered the 13-year-old’s love for unschooling, a popular homeschooling method that allows children to direct their education and choose curriculums they are interested in.
Daphne McQuarter told The Washington Post that her daughter began showing signs of her genius tendency at a very young age. As a toddler, Alena Wicker was already reading chapter books. “It was just how she did things and how advanced she was,” McQuarter said. But being a super genius and getting accepted to med school isn’t the only thing the young girl can boast about.
Young Alena Wicker founded the Brown STEM Girl Foundation to support girls of color and foster an interest in STEM fields. She dreamed up this initiative after graduating high school when she noticed severe racial and gender disparities in fields pertaining to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The foundation provides various scholarships, mentorships, internships, and much more to support black girls in their endeavors in STEM education.
Other than creating a national charity all before turning 13, Alena Wicker has plenty of other achievements under her belt heading into med school. She also holds a record for being the youngest-ever intern at both NASA and LEGO. Much of this is due to her love of engineering. Originally, Wicker aspired to study this in college. But a trip to the Middle Eastern country of Jordan unlocked her true calling in the field of viral immunology.
Due to a passion for helping others, she discovered her fervor for health care. Going into medical school, she strives to make a difference in helping underrepresented communities, all while finding cures for diseases. Currently, Alena Wicker is on track to obtain her master’s in science by 2024 before heading off to medical school. Likewise, she plans to complete medical school by the time she turns 18. The sky’s the limit for the young 13-year-old, and given her array of history-making achievements, she might just be the one to discover cures to life-altering diseases sometime in the near future.