Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth – Verna Smalling clearly remembers the first day her daughter Rana went to basic school. “She was three years old and all the other children were crying for their mummy but she said to the teacher that she wanted work to do. she was ready for school,” recalled Verna Smalling with a chuckle.

Since then, Rana Vanessa Smalling has never let up – always at the top or very near the top of her class.

No wonder then that those who know her well are not at all surprised that the 18-year-old Hampton High School sixth former and resident of Leeds in St Elizabeth is now the biggest Jamaican non-military undergraduate scholarship winner ever.

When Rana starts college at the University of Chicago in Illinois, USA in September she will be the beneficiary of a scholarship and grants from the university worth just over US$54,000 per year or more than US$216,000 over four years.

The financial package, which recognises Rana’s outstanding academic achievements, as well as her extracurricular activities and community service, is broken down into just over US$33,000 annually for the scholarship and US$20,769 in grants. The grants will continue annually, subject to application by Rana and consideration by the university.

According to Dr Dennis Minott, educator, researcher and head of the A-QuEST project, continuation of the grants should be a mere formality.

“It has very rarely ever happened that the grants are discontinued and in the case of Rana I can assure you it won’t happen,” said Minott.

Rana travelled to the United States in April – all expenses paid by the University of Chicago and the Wesleyan University of Connecticut – to make a choice between the two. To her, the scholarship and grants are rewards for consistent work and prayer.

“I remember in the mornings at devotion hearing my principal talk about other girls who had won scholarships to go abroad and I said to myself ‘Well, I want to be like that .’ I looked into it and I thought I would do better if I went abroad because schools in America would be inclined to give financial aid .,” she told the Observer.

Rana said her desire to study abroad was also influenced by her interest in forensic science and a desire to make a special contribution to Jamaican society.

“The field that I want to study isn’t offered out here,” she explained. “I want to become a forensic scientist and I would have a better base abroad . I like investigating, I think Jamaica needs forensic scientists and if I do become one I will come back here and work here if the opportunity opens up. I love Jamaica, Jamaica is always going to be my home.”

Minott, using his A-QuEST project, prepares some of the “brightest and best” in Jamaican high schools for American colleges. Through A-QuEST, Rana and other top-performing students at Hampton and other high schools were guided through the intricate process of targeting and applying for scholarship programmes at top overseas universities, and preparing students for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) used by US colleges to assess applicants.

Crucially, Minott, who visited Hampton in remote Malvern for three hours each week for his A-QuEST sessions – paid for by parents – helped students brush up on such aspects as time management, the methodology of study, and how best to integrate at schools in other countries and cultures.

For Minott, Rana was simply the best he has had contact with this year. “This is a child who excels because she puts her mind to excelling in everything,” he explained.

Parents and teachers all agree.

“She is very determined, meticulous in little things. she always wants to make sure whatever she gets done is correct. She wants to make sure that the quality of her work is of a very high standard,” said Maxine McFarlane, the biology A Level teacher at Munro College where Rana does sixth form work in the sciences as part of the long-standing partnership between the historic all-boy school and all-girl Hampton.

Heather Murray, principal of Hampton, describes Rana as “modest, well behaved” and socially in-tune. She epitomises what Murray calls the Hampton Standard.

“I like to say that at Hampton we don’t blow horns, we are like a lighthouse, we just shine. Rana epitomises that,” said Murray.

Born to devout Christians, Cecil and Verna Smalling – both teachers – in St Catherine, Rana learnt to read by looking over the shoulder of her older brother Adrian, even before she got to the McGrath Road Basic School in Ewarton. The reading habit never left her. “Sometimes it was very difficult to get her to do anything around the house because her head would be in a book,” recalled her mother.

Once at school, Rana consistently earned the admiration of her teachers and peers for excellence in every academic area. At nine years old, while at Ewarton Primary, she came home one day to announce to her parents that she wanted to be part of the Spelling Bee competition.

She duly became the parish champ for St Catherine and among the top 10 spellers in the island – the same year Jody-Ann Maxwell famously covered herself in glory at the Scripps Howard Spelling Bee in the USA.

Having moved to St Elizabeth with her parents, Rana, then at Santa Cruz Primary, excelled in the GSAT examinations to win the Scotiabank Scholarship, which funded her first five years at Hampton.

She rapidly established herself as a Gold Student at Hampton, making the honour roll every year with an average in excess of 85 per cent to win the Gold Certificate. Indeed, according to Murray, “Rana’s average for the year was sometimes over 90”.

That scholastic performance flowed naturally into her CXC results in 2004. She captured all nine CXC subjects, registering a One in each – Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, English, Spanish, Social Studies, Accounts, and Information Technology – making her the second best CXC achiever in the island that year.

Inevitably there are suggestions that Rana’s achievements reflect genius qualities. Her father, who now works as an insurance sales rep having left teaching, rejects that notion.

“I don’t believe she is a genius. I just believe she works very hard and focuses very well on what she does and has the gift of self-motivation,” he said. “Once she has established a goal she goes after it.”

Smalling also believes a stable home life based on the teachings of the Christian church, good schools and good teachers have made a big difference. “Her very first teacher, Mrs Odith Barker at McGrath Road Basic School, took a very special interest in her and she has been very fortunate in her teachers ever since,” he said.

For Verna Smalling, her daughter’s achievements “should give hope” to those of limited resources that “if children work hard” and get “the proper guidance and support” they will get to very top. “It shows that you don’t have to send your children to expensive prep schools,” she added.

Rana, described by those close to her as a “wholesome” person with a keen sensitivity to the feelings of others, heaped praise on all her schools, not least Hampton and Munro College, her parents, her “church family” at the Church of God of Prophesy in Santa Cruz for their help over the years. Even St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) in Santa Cruz, the school where her mother teaches and where Rana often gained access to the Internet and advice from teachers, earned Rana’s gratitude.

But she says she is most grateful to God who she says has consistently answered her prayers.

“I’ve been walking with God for a very long time,” she said. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know who God was and didn’t talk to God. I was brought up in the church and was baptised at the age of 10, even at primary school I used to pray to God and ask God to help me in my school work. and He has answered my prayers.”

editorial@jamaicaobserver.com

Some of Rana Smalling’s achievements

. Spelling Bee champion for St Catherine at age nine;

. Champion in the all-island reading competition for the age group 9-11;

. National reading competition champion for the 12-14 age group;

. M&M Mathematics competition first-place winner among secondary schools in St Elizabeth for grades 10 and 11; and

. At the age of 16, received the Hampton High School 145th anniversary award.