How Did This 17-Year-Old Get Accepted To All 8 Ivy League Universities?
#RANDOMWEDNESDAY: It's tough enough to get into one Ivy League school. But all eight?
By Sadho Ram — 02 Apr 2014, 08:12 PM — Updated over 10 years ago
The Essay That Got This 17-Year-Old Accepted Into Every Ivy League University
This 17-year-old's application essay got him into all eight Ivy League schools — despite a declining acceptance rate in seven out of eight Ivies and an era of increased selectivity in elite educational institutions.
nypost.com
What exactly did Long Island high school student Kwasi Enin, who has straight As and a 2,250 SAT score, write? The New York Post obtained a copy (readable below), and as New York Mag observes, "It is very much a college essay — flowery language, Big Ideas, lessons learned — but it also worked."
policymic.com
This is Kwasi Enin, a Long Island student. He is a 17-year-old first generation Ghanaian who plans on becoming a doctor.
What's special about him? This Long Island teen has beaten the odds - he has been accepted by every single Ivy League Universities. YES, all 8 of them!
That's what happened to Kwasi Enin, a student at William Floyd High School in Mastic Beach, N.Y., this week. The 17-year-old received acceptance letters from Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and Yale.
Speaking about the news, Kwasi says he thought, "this can’t be happening"
Kwasi Enin (r.) poses for a photo with his dad Ebenezer (l.), his mom Doreen (2nd from l.), and his sister Adwoa (2nd from r.).
Image via nydailynews.comKwasi Enin of Shirley, L.I., spent hours preparing his admissions essay for 12 schools, and said he hoped that he would get into “at least one” of the Ivy League schools that he applied to. When the acceptance letters rolled in, he was “shocked,” he said Tuesday.
“I had the passion to research all eight of them, they can all be so different,” Mr. Enin said on Tuesday afternoon, during a blitz of media interviews following a Newsday profile published on Monday. ”I thought I could fit in at any of them. I also thought, ‘I do really want to get into at least one.’”
But Mr. Enin didn’t anticipate he would be accepted into all eight. “Somebody has to reject me somewhere,” he recalls thinking. “When that didn’t happen, I sat back and was amazed and grateful,’” he said.
"It's a big deal when we have students apply to one or two Ivies," Kwasi’s guidance counselor Nancy Winkler said. "To get into one or two is huge. It was extraordinary."
Nancy Winkler, Enin’s guidance counsellor, told the New York Daily News, “I’ve never seen anything like it in my 15 years as a high-school counsellor. He’s going to be a leader in whatever he chooses.”
time.com
Kwasi scored 2,250 on his SATs, putting him in the 99th percentile. Still, he said he wasn't banking on getting into all 8 prestigious universities.
Mr. Enin’s achievement is perhaps not surprising considering his academic career so far. He’s excelled academically, scoring 2,250 out of 2,400 on his SAT score, and is also a musician, playing the electric bass, viola and participating in the school’s orchestra and a cappella group.
He’s acted in several school plays since the 9th grade, participates in track, shot put and discus, and is also in the school’s Youth & Government club, William Floyd High School principal Barbara Butler said. “To have been able to balance everything with such modesty and to be such an overall good citizen, that is rare,” Ms. Butler said.
For the record, he was also accepted by Duke, Stony Brook University, SUNY Geneseo and Binghamton University
Although Enin has yet to make a decision, there seems to be a frontrunner. "I think my preference is Yale. They seem to embody all the kinds of things I want in a college: the family, the wonderful education, the amazing diverse students, and financial aid as well. So I think Yale has all that for me right now. I still have to compare all these schools—these wonderful schools."
cnn.comAfter receiving all of the acceptance letters, how did he feel? He says:
"Pride and appreciation and thankfulness for everyone who helped you in the whole process, from the one who gave you the idea to helped you with your essays to all of your teachers helping you with your grades and whatnot, all the way down to your counselors," Enin told Newsday. "And of course your family, your parents, for all that they do."
christianpost.com