By Morgan Alston | New York Amsterdam News | Word In Black
(WIB) – Chess is all about taking chances and creating opportunities — something Brooklyn Success Academy student Geah Jean Baptiste knows very well. Being an avid chess player since she was a child, Baptiste credits her time playing chess for her latest achievement: getting into Harvard.
Eva Moskowitz, the Founder and CEO of Success Academy, said this is the very first time a student has been accepted to Harvard. Baptiste, a senior, spends a lot of time captaining her high school chess team. She firmly believes chess helped her get into not one, but two Ivy League schools, Harvard and Yale. Playing chess regularly strengthens vital skills like abstract thinking, problem-solving, and more. These abilities are also known to contribute to developing a more intelligent person with a higher-than-average IQ. Her perfect grade point average of a 4.0 sets her as an example to this belief.
As a Brooklyn native, she is excited to make her city proud and is looking forward to making her dreams of working in neurosciences become a reality.