--- title: Student Who Won the Beyoncé Scholarship Has a Crazy Story description: One of Beyoncé's Homecoming Scholars has a fascinating backstory behind winning the prestigious award. canonical: https://time.com/5347651/beyonce-scholarship-winner/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-07-24T22:01:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:54:01.333Z og:title: The Story Behind This Student Who Won Beyoncé's Scholarship og:description: This wasn't her first brush with Bey og:url: https://time.com/5347651/beyonce-scholarship-winner/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt952fecff0c8782b1/698936224ee26212cb31267c/allana-barefield-beyonce-homecoming-scholars-award.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: allana-barefield-beyonce-homecoming-scholars-award og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Story Behind This Student Who Won Beyoncé's Scholarship twitter:description: This wasn't her first brush with Bey twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt952fecff0c8782b1/698936224ee26212cb31267c/allana-barefield-beyonce-homecoming-scholars-award.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Student Shares the Crazy Story Behind Her Winning Beyoncé's Homecoming Scholarship > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Jul 24, 2018 10:01 PM UTC  Courtesy of Allana Barefield  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Jul 24, 2018 10:01 PM UTC When Xavier University student Allana Barefield was checking the news on Monday morning, she didn’t expect that she would be part of the headlines. But that’s what happens when [Beyoncé](http://time.com/5078078/beyonce-jay-z-electric-slide-video/) selects you to be one of the eight recipients of her [Homecoming Scholars Award Program.](https://www.essence.com/news/beyonce-homecoming-hbcu-award-programp-scholarship) When Barefield, a 22-year-old rising senior studying mass communications with a focus on broadcast, found out she received Beyoncé’s scholarship, she was brought to tears, telling TIME it was a “dream come true.” The Homecoming Scholars Award program is a scholarship dedicated for historically black colleges and universities, which awards each student $25,000 for their studies. “All of a sudden a notification popped up on my phone and someone said, ‘Congratulations!’ and I was like, ‘What’s going on?'” she told _TIME_. “I had to call my mom right away. I had no clue, I was kind of nervous because I hadn’t heard back from the committee yet and a lot of people were applying for this prestigious scholarship, so to be a recipient was amazing.” > [](https://twitter.com/Allana%5FB18/status/1021425740355653632) This isn’t the first time that Beyoncé has touched Barefield’s life. A devoted member of the Beyhive, the pop star’s avid fan base, she met Queen Bey at a party that Solange threw for NBA weekend in 2017\. There, she was able to have a conversation with her about how much she and her late father enjoyed her music together. Barefield said that Beyoncé thanked her for being a committed fan and now it’s Barefield who’s grateful. > [](https://twitter.com/Allana%5FB18/status/833219351947919360) “Everything comes full circle,” she said. “When I look at Beyoncé, it’s like one of the last connections I have with my dad. Me and my dad, we would sing “Love on Top” together, listening to her just brings back those memories.” Barefield wrote her winning application essay about Jemele Hill, a journalist whose work she’s long admired, especially because they both got their start in high school with the National Association of Black Journalists. “Obviously, for the upcoming year, \[with this scholarship\] it’s a way to pay off what’s not already paid. It’s a way to continue being a leader on campus and to be a leader in my community,” she said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5347651/beyonce-scholarship-winner/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5347651/beyonce-scholarship-winner/"},"headline":"Student Shares the Crazy Story Behind Her Winning Beyoncé's Homecoming Scholarship","datePublished":"2018-07-24T22:01:13.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:54:01.333Z","description":"\"It brought tears to my eyes\"","url":"https://time.com/5347651/beyonce-scholarship-winner/","keywords":["Newsfeed","celebrity"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt952fecff0c8782b1/698936224ee26212cb31267c/allana-barefield-beyonce-homecoming-scholars-award.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt952fecff0c8782b1/698936224ee26212cb31267c/allana-barefield-beyonce-homecoming-scholars-award.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"allana-barefield-beyonce-homecoming-scholars-award","caption":"","creditText":"Courtesy of Allana Barefield","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5347651/beyonce-scholarship-winner/","name":"Student Shares the Crazy Story Behind Her Winning Beyoncé's Homecoming Scholarship"}}]}] ```