Some families produce one exceptional student. The Bongwes have produced three. Bongiwe (29), Sazi (23) and Menzi (19) have each carved out their places at some of the world’s most competitive universities - from Georgetown to Harvard and now Oxford - an unusually consistent run of academic achievement for siblings from the same family.
It’s a story that traces back to their father, Stanley Bongwe, and the scholarship that took him to the United States in the late 80s.
“It’s one thing to help an exceptional student get into a top university. It’s another to see three siblings from the same household do it, one after another - and rarer still to find a father who paved that path himself, studying overseas a generation before them,” says Brad Latilla-Campbell, Country Manager at Crimson Education, a global mentorship company that helps students like the Bongwes gain admission to the Ivy League, Oxbridge and other top universities worldwide.
Stanley didn’t come from privilege. Long before his children would go on to study at Harvard and Oxford, he was a boy from rural Mpumalanga, a long way from the world he too would one day study in.
When a full academic scholarship gave him the chance to leave, he took it - immersing himself in a completely new country and culture that changed the course of his life and proved to him that where you start doesn’t have to determine where you end up. It’s a lesson he made a point of passing on to his own children.
“I told my children from an early age: you’ve got a better opportunity than I did, and I’m going to make sure you take it,” says Stanley. “When I applied for my own scholarship, I had to figure the entire process out on my own.
“My younger two had Crimson in their corner to guide them through it, and between that support and years of hard work at school, the results speak for themselves. What makes me proudest isn’t just where my children ended up, but everything it took to get there - nobody hands you an international qualification, you earn it.”
For Stanley, the return on his own overseas education was never just the degree; it was the outlook it gave him. Watching his children go on to earn that same kind of opportunity, he sees it reflected in each of them - confident, connected, and equipped to move through the world, yet none of them losing sight of where they’re from, or who they are.
It’s that balance between ambition and identity that Stanley encourages other South African families to aim for - and one of his children have shown in practice. “What I wanted to give them wasn’t just belief in themselves, it was proof you don’t lose yourself chasing something bigger,” says Stanley.
“That’s shown up in all three of them, in different ways, on different continents, but it always comes back to knowing exactly where home is. I proved it was possible once. Now they’re proving it again.”
Crimson Education’s admissions and application counselling model connects students with the world’s top tutors and mentors, providing tailored support to help them reach their personal education and career goals. For more information, visit www.crimsoneducation.org/za
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