Nya Marie

Born and raised in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, Nya Marie attends Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in Chicago, the alma mater of First Lady Michelle Obama. Nya has just started her junior year and is eagerly on the search for the perfect college and how to get there. Nya has two older brothers who both attend Ivy League schools. Both of her parents went to Northwestern, and her father went to graduate school at the University of Chicago. She enjoys playing water polo, going to the beach and traveling.

Nya plays goalie on her high school's water polo team and is a member of the swim team. She is the founder of the “Saturday Fun World” at a local grade school. It's a bi-weekly program she developed to introduce disadvantaged youth to various cultures through games, food and museums.

Nya speaks two languages, Spanish and French. She recently returned from a month-long language immersion program in Guatemala, where she hiked along the Atitlán lake in a remote part of the country. In a perfect world Nya would like to grow up and be an explorer.