A Nigerian teenager has received admission into nine universities in the United States including all the eight Ivy League schools.
Ifeoma White-Thorpe, a New Jersey high school student, born by Nigerian parents, did a clean sweep of her college applications to achieve the feat.
She got admitted to Harvard, Yale, Columbia, UPenn, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton and Stanford.
Ifeoma who attends Morris Hills High School in Denville, is now trying to figure out which of the prestigious schools she would like to go to in order to further her education, which she thinks will be focused on global health.
Her proud parents, Andre and Patricia White-Thorpe, said they will leave the final decision up to the teenager.
Her mum, Patricia, nee Eluemunor, is a pharmacist, according to her records, while the husband is a computer expert.
“I want to go into global health and study biology, and so many of them have great research facilities, so I was like, I might as well just shoot my shot and apply,” Ifeoma told WABC.
“I got into Harvard early-action, so I figured I’ll just go there, so then I got into all the others and I was like, ‘Wait, now I don’t know where I want to go,’” Ifeoma added.
When she got her acceptance letters, she almost couldn’t believe it.
“I was shaking, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, like this might be eight out of eight,’ and I clicked it and it said ‘Congratulations,’ and I was like, ‘Oh my goodness,’ and then I was like, ‘What did I say?’” she recalled. “I think my love for poetry and writing just really stood out.”
“At this point, none of the schools I’ve applied to said they give merit scholarships, so I’m praying that they give me some more financial aid or some money. Shout out to all of those schools, please give me something,” Ifeoma said with a laugh.
The Ivy League is made of up Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University and Yale University.
According to U.S. News and World Report, the top 10 ranked schools for biology in the country are as follows: Harvard (1), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2), Stanford (3), the University of California – Berkeley (4) and the California Institute of Technology (5).
Ifeoma will not be the first teenager to get into all of the Ivy League schools in recent years. Kwasi Enin achieved the feat in 2014, Harold Ekeh in 2015 and Augusta Uwamanzu-Nna and Kelly Hyles last year.
