Of the more than 62,000 students who applied to medical school in the U.S. in 2021, less than 40% were accepted. And the number of Black first-year med students is only 2,562. But 13-year-old Alena Analeigh Wicker, who was accepted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Heersink School of Medicine, is making history by becoming the youngest Black person ever to get accepted into medical school in the U.S.
“I really want to leave my mark on the world. And lead a group of girls that know what they can do,” Alena told 12 News. “It actually took one class in engineering for me to say this is kind of not where I wanted to go,” she told 12 News. “I think viral immunology really came from my passion for volunteering and going out there engaging with the world.”
“I’m so thankful for people around me that I can always learn from and that get it,” Alena wrote in the Facebook post. “I’m always working on a better version of me.”