CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Loping into MIT’s Strata Center for Computer, Information and Intelligence Services , Joel Cofield, 17, could be taken for a future math professor or boy wizard Harry Potter.
The soft-spoken and gangly 6-foot teenager doesn’t seem to mind that he’s hundreds of miles from his home in small-town Georgia for the first time, and preparing to enter one of the world’s most famous engineering schools on a full scholarship. “When I found out I was coming here, I didn’t know exactly how it was going to work out,” he said. “I was going to try to make it work no matter what. Appreciation is the only word for it.”
Raised by his grandmother Ruth Brewer in Monroe, Ga., from age 7, Joel was awarded a four-year scholarship valued at $184,000 to MIT this fall after receiving a perfect score in math on his Stanford Achievement Test.
But because Cofield’s high school did not offer all the courses necessary for entry, MIT officials enrolled him in a preparatory program this summer, giving him a head start on knowing his way around campus.
During a recent interview, Joel said he feels fortunate, not different, because of his background. He said he never really got to know his biological parents – his father died in a motorcycle accident and his mother has been out of the picture with drug and mental illness problems.
His grandmother always stressed the value of education in getting ahead in life, Joel said. And now he worries that at age 73 and in declining health, she could use his help at home with his 10-year-old sister, Nicole.
“On the way up here, one of the main things I thought about was that if anything were to happen while I’m here … ,” he said. “I’ll be gone for four years,” with the ambition of becoming a mathematician or a professor.
Joel said he worked hard to keep his perfect 4.0 grade point average in high school, but that he could not have accomplished academic success without the guidance of his grandmother.
“As my parent, she was always the person who paid for anything school related,” he said. “She also was the one who said, ‘You should do this and not that’ and stay out of trouble.”
Joel said his grandmother taught him to appreciate what he has, and not to whine when things don’t go his way or when he feels pained by parental discipline.
“Whenever I meet other people, it makes me have a different view when they talk about problems with their parents,” he said. “I can’t relate.”

Kelly Kazek is a CNHI News Service Elite Reporting Project Fellowship recipient. She writes for The News Courier in Athens, Ala.