Englewood's Kayla Eubanks is heading to New York University. View Full Caption Kayla Eubanks

CHICAGO — Kayla Eubanks, the Englewood resident who wants to leave Chicago so she can one day return as a prominent South Side brain surgeon, is heading to the Big Apple after all.

Eubanks, the Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep graduate who thought she wouldn't have enough scholarship money to enroll at New York University, will be attending the prestigious school in Manhattan later this month.

Late last month, Eubanks learned she had earned a four-year scholarship that would help pay for her room and board. An earlier four-year scholarship she won in the spring is paying enough for her tuition, which is about $46,000 a year.

Eubanks, who said she's majoring in neuroscience on a pre-med track, also started a $5,000 GoFundMe to help pay for her miscellaneous college expenses.

"I'm excited, I'm happy, and I just had faith," Eubanks, who leaves for New York Aug. 28, said Sunday. "You have to believe in yourself."

G. Gabrielle Starr, NYU's Dean of the College of Arts and Science, said Eubanks was one of a handful of students each year who contact her directly during the application process.

"Every year a few students do reach out directly to me," Starr said. "Rarely do they have the kind of compelling story Kayla tells and the talents Kayla offers. ... She is clearly a rising star, highly motivated, disciplined, talented and immensely bright. I can't wait to see what she does in her career, and hope that she goes on to take the world of medicine by storm."

Eubanks hopes to open a giant medical complex on the South Side, filled with all types of doctors, her name prominently on signs out front, she said.

At Brooks, Eubanks had a 4.27 grade point average and scored a 28 on her ACT. She was accepted into several prestigious universities, including NYU, Howard University and Spelman College. But she was worried about enrolling at any of those schools because she had only earned partial scholarships.

Her original plan for this school year was to attend Malcolm X College, earn an associate's degree in nursing, then work part time as she eventually reapplied to four-year universities.

Eubanks said even as a little girl she dreamed of punching her ticket out of the South Side through education. The 10th oldest of 13 siblings, she said her brothers and sisters for years have referred to her as "the smart one."

After eighth-grade graduation, Eubanks filled out the required paperwork to get into Brooks College Prep instead of going to a neighborhood school near her home in the 6900 block of South Green Street. That block has seen two shootings since 2010, and there have been dozens more in the surrounding area, according to data compiled by DNAinfo.

Eubanks said she once saw a man shot a few steps in front of her. When she walks near home, she always stays near the middle of the street, to keep distance from someone who could jump out of a bush, alley or other hard-to-see area.

"I've always lived in a bad neighborhood, but it's getting worse," she said in May. "I love Chicago, I really do, but it's not a place where I can thrive because there's too much stuff to worry about. Somebody's getting killed or robbed or beaten on. It's a continuous war zone. It doesn't make any sense. If I could avoid being around this, I would because it seems like nothing prospers."

Eubanks believes she can be an exception, escaping the South Side. Only one in 20 neurosurgeons is a woman, and only one in 20 practicing physicians is black.

"You don't hear about people where I'm from going to school to be neurosurgeons, especially black people," she said.

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