Noah Albritton thought it was a typo when he saw it at Georgia State’s Scholarship Day this past spring.
“I saw [Noah Britton’s] name tag and I thought, ‘No way is that guy’s name real — his first name is the same is mine, and his last name is two letters away from being the same. And when I saw that we had both gotten the Presidential Scholarship, I said, ‘Oh, man, this is funny.’ And then we got in the same dorm room together. He’s a good guy, we’ll just have to come up with some nicknames or something.”
So yes, Presidential Scholars Noah Albritton and Noah Britton will be roommates this year, and classmates at Georgia State’s Honors College. But if they can keep their names straight with phone messages and class registration, everything else sets up for a college career full of promise for both of them.
Forging Ahead on His Own Path
Albritton plans on majoring in actuarial science at Georgia State, a profession he says he didn’t even know about until his mom suggested it a year and a half ago. “I looked up what they do, and they work with mathematical modeling and things like that,” he says. “I enjoy math a whole lot, and I always wanted to have a career in mathematics, but I didn’t know where that was going to take me. And I felt like actuarial science was a more specific path.”
As he did his research, Albritton found that Georgia State’s actuarial science program, offered through the Department of Risk Management and Insurance at the J. Mack Robinson College of Business, is one of the most highly regarded in the country. That, combined with the availability of the Presidential Scholarship, made Georgia State an extremely attractive choice. To hear him tell it, though, the scholarship was anything but a done deal.
“I started doing more research and finding out about the different scholarships and whatnot, and I thought, ‘Well, it’d be really nice to have a big scholarship like that.’ So I started looking at what was involved with it, and there were quite a few steps in the process.
“We had to participate in a Q&A and an online seminar, and we had to fill out an application, which was extensive — I think I probably wrote about an entire page for every question on the application. But I was really adamant about getting the scholarship, so I wanted to put a lot of effort into it.”
After meeting some of the other prospective Presidential Scholars at Scholarship Day, Albritton says he was “surprised” when he got the call informing him that he was one of the awardees. “The people at Scholarship Day, they were on top of their game, that’s a fact,” he says. “And I felt like a lot of them had bigger opportunities than I did in high school — a lot of them had taken AP classes, and my school didn’t even offer that many. But Georgia State takes into consideration more than just your test scores and the number of AP classes you’ve taken, and I appreciated that.”
Plenty of Open Doors Waiting
Coming from the town of Ringgold in northwest Georgia, Albritton says he was prepared for “a bit of culture shock” when he arrived in downtown Atlanta to begin classes. “My entire hometown’s population is less than the number of students in the freshman class at Georgia State,” he says. “So there are a lot of differences. But I’m doing my best to embrace it and really enjoy myself.”
Albritton says he’s excited about all the opportunities that will be available to him in downtown Atlanta — not only while he’s a Georgia State student, but also once he’s graduated and started his career.
“Job-wise, there are so many different companies and firms to work for — so many opportunities as far as I’m concerned,” he says. “It would’ve been hard to turn down Georgia State, simply because of all the opportunities Atlanta has to offer.”
But he’s also taking into account more than just work and school. “In my free time, I’d like to join the outdoor club. I know they always go on a trip to Colorado to do some mountaineering and skiing, and I’ve always been kind of an outdoorsman, so I would really enjoy that.
“And I think there are some entrepreneurship clubs at the business school that I would also really enjoy,” he adds. “My dream job would be to have my own business at some point.”