Surrey student awarded $120,000 STEM scholarship
Published 9:15 am Sunday, August 2, 2026
Fleetwood Park Secondary recent graduate Sarah Ye has been named one of this year’s recipients of the Schulich Leader Scholarships.
Surrey Schools shared on their website that this award is a highly coveted six-figure scholarship for students who demonstrate a passion for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
The Schulich Leader scholarship offers selected students $120,000 that for Ye will help her pursue engineering in university.
Surrey Schools says that more than 235,000 students applied and 1,300 were nominated, with Ye being named a 2026 Schulich Leader.
“Honestly, I still can’t believe it but I am one of them,” Yu said to Surrey Schools. “I only applied because the counsellor sent a message on Teams asking if anyone wanted to be a Schulich nominee.”
Yu said that her fellow students were telling her if she applied, she might not get the scholarship but she decided to still take the risk and see where it took her.
Surrey Schools says that half of the Schulich Leader scholarships are valued at $120,000 to study engineering and the other half are valued at $100,000 to study science and math.
For Ye, Surrey Schools says her interest in using assistive technology to help people with disabilities earned her the engineering scholarship, enabling her to pursue higher education in mechanical engineering or biomedical engineering.
“I want to use technology for good,” she said, highlighting her passion for humanitarianism throughout her application. “In my senior year, I did this project where we used computer vision software to detect hand gestures through our laptop camera and control a remote-controlled car.”
Ye said that this is what inspired her to consider more ways that technology could help others. “I think that innovation really aligned with the STEM focus of the Schulich Foundation.”
Ye’s application was said to also highlight several other academic accomplishments, including organizing the largest student-run debate competition in the Lower Mainland and receiving experience in Grade 10 through Shad Canada, a month-long summer STEAm and entrepreneurship program for secondary students.
“I worked on a design project on sustainable energy and we came up with a really unique solution to put turbines into the sewers to harness energy from the rain,” she said. “We won first place in our cohort and I talked about it in my application. It demonstrated that I have these entrepreneurship capabilities and that’s something they also look for.”
She continued sharing her experience, dating back to Grade 11 where she took a programming course which sparked her passion for coding. “It basically taught me that failure is part of the process – even if you get something wrong, you just have to keep trying to fix it, and it completely changed my mindset, even outside of coding.”
Surrey Schools says that Ye was among the earlier recipients to be notified of her Schulich leadership award, receiving an email from Simon Fraser University (SFU) in late March with an offer to join the Engineering Science program.
“I remember thinking, ‘Is this a really early April Fool’s joke?’” she recalled. “They also gave me a phone call on April Fool’s, which is kind of funny, but it was thankfully all real and I was shocked to hear it was real.”
Ye explained to Surrey Schools that this scholarship has opened more doors than just going to university. Receiving this scholarship has now provided her with an opportunity to be a part of the Schulich Leaders network and the potential to make a greater impact in engineering assistive technology.
“Accepting the scholarship was more than just the obvious large amount of money,” she said. “Every Schulich Leader gets to be a part of these networks and go to events and have networking opportunities. They also get more direct access into the industry, and that is super valuable for my future.”
Learn more about the Schulich Leader Scholarships at schulichleaders.com.