He’s All Ivy — Accepted To All 8 Ivy League Colleges

[Playinghardball]

In the next month, Kwasi Enin must make a tough decision: Which of the eight Ivy League universities should he attend this fall? A first-generation American from Shirley, N.Y., the 17-year-old violist and aspiring physician applied to all eight, from Brown to Yale. The responses began rolling in over the past few months, and by late last week when he opened an e-mail from Harvard, he found he’d been accepted to every one.

School district officials provided scanned copies of acceptance letters from all eight on Monday. Yale confirmed that it was holding a spot for Enin. The feat is extremely rare, say college counselors — few students even apply to all eight, because each seeks different qualities in their freshman class. Almost none are invited to attend them all. The Ivy League colleges are among the nation’s most elite.

"My heart skipped a beat when he told me he was applying to all eight," says Nancy Winkler, a guidance counselor at William Floyd High School, where Enin attends class. In 29 years as a counselor, she says, she's never seen anything like this. "It's a big deal when we have students apply to one or two Ivies. To get into one or two is huge. It was extraordinary."

For most of the eight schools, acceptance comes rarely, even among the USA's top students. At the top end, Cornell University admitted only 14% of applicants. Harvard accepted just 5.9%.

But Enin has "a lot of things in his favor," says college admissions expert Katherine Cohen, CEO and founder of IvyWise, a New York-based consulting firm.

For one thing, he's a young man. "Colleges are looking for great boys," Cohen says. Application pools these days skew heavily toward girls: The U.S. Department of Education estimates that females comprised 57% of college students in degree-granting institutions last year. Colleges — especially elite ones — are struggling to keep male/female ratios even, so admitting academically gifted young men like Enin gives them an advantage.

More here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/31/ivy-league-admissions-college-university/7119531/?sf24515598=1

http://theobamadiary.com/2014/04/01/rise-and-shine-788/

[Rex]

1. Wow, very impressive! He should apply with Rice University.

Forget the Ivy league schools, someone that smart...go to MIT or Rice.

[Dorian Gray]

2. That's amazing....

what an accomplishment. And violin and medicine? I hope he's somebody who will change lives in the future. He's got the goods.

[BlueCheese]

7. I think it's a viola.

But I wouldn't hold that against him.

[hunter]

3. Bright kid, but I hope he's looking beyond those to a place that meets his highest expectations.

We visited the Ivy Leagues when my kids were shopping for colleges and I got the feeling that a kid could still excluded from the Ivy League "club" even as a student.

My kids and my wife are "high achievers." My oldest didn't get any grade lower than an "A" until college and was devastated by the first "B."

Me, I was always happy not to be kicked out of school. Earning a B could make me quite cheerful, especially if it was a difficult science course.

[zazen]

4. and my white daughter with equal accomplishments got accepted to 1 of 8

It was called the year of the "unhooked" white girl. Hispanic girls with lower qualifications at her school got into Princeton and Harvard but she didn't.

We're progressives and we understand affirmative action, but it's hard when it hits your kid, especially since we're on free and reduced lunch due to medical bankruptcy. We look middle class but are no longer in it. But she's in a top international Ivy now (after being waitlisted at first) on full scholarship. So all's well.

Still, I can see why some parents and kids could get pissed off when they have stellar accomplishments and don't get in--I think it hurts the high achieving Asian females around here most of all. But then they get heavily recruited by top 100 schools who offer them full rides, and smaller liberal arts schools here in NC aggressively try to recruit Asian students too with juicy scholarships.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

14. there is a value in education to diversity. how is it hurting your kid when she did get into an ivy

league school? this hurt seems very theoretical in comparison to the real hurt caused to african americans by years of brutal racism.

[zazen]

16. well, she got waitlisted and only got in because her counselor pleaded with them

and moved her to the top of the list, because her qualifications were abundantly higher than those of minority children from our school who had in fact gotten into that institution and all of the other Ivy's. It is a fact. There is a complex history with that, in which she benefited from educational and cultural capital from having educated, white (though quite poor) parents who had instant credibility as white people and knew how to work systems, while they did not. She was raised to understand that.

I'm quite aware that the profound changes in higher education and the economy that are pressuring children of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds into brutal competition for fewer job opportunities are not comparable to the harms of slavery and racism. I would never suggest otherwise.

People's experience isn't "theoretical." I hope you'll be more careful in your accusations of racial insensitivities. I busted my ass in the civil rights movement and we got threats from the Klan for my Dad teaching at an HBCU.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

18. just because you participate in a movement, doesn't negate your earlier comment

about harm done. my entire point is that the harm done is in no way equivalent.

[zazen]

31. so because slavery existed, white people can't criticize anything else?

I never equated the 5% Ivy admission rates and dropping, and the related outrageous, neoliberally-driven pressures in K-12 and higher education, to slavery.

Your suggesting I did so above and here and then trying to set me up as some reverse discrimination straw man is an existential cop-out, but you and your friends have at it.

I've been found out. I'm a mole for a white power group. Bwahahaha!

[Capt. Obvious]

17. That's like reverse racism

or slavery for white people.

[Logical]

22. She will have to always suffer knowing she only got accepted into one. Cool story bro. nt

[City Lights]

25. And a full scholarship! nt

[Logical]

26. Wow, that is a hard life lesson!! :-) nt

[Lonusca]

28. What's an "international Ivy"? nt

[rug]

35. There aren't any.

[Lonusca]

36. Exactly. nt

[AverageJoe90]

29. I can't blame you for being disappointed back then, TBH.

[Tikki]

5. He belongs at Stanford...

Tikki

[KamaAina]

23. Thanks to Ward Connerly and Prop 209,

African American enrollment has plunged so low at Berkeley and UCLA that many AA students say they feel more comfortable at places like Stanford and USC, which have long been seen as elitist!

[Brickbat]

6. They say if you're accepted to everything you apply to, you've applied too low.

[Playinghardball]

8. The closes I would have ever gotten to an Ivy League university would have been to drive by one...

[NightWatcher]

9. 8 application fees and 8 entrance essays (I wonder if he wrote 8 or just 1 and changed the name)

It's always been my dream to attend (insert college name here)...

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. Giving preferential admission to federally funded schools to men is technically illegal.

Schools do it (but officially insist that they don't) because if they don't maintain a semblance of gender balance, women stop applying.

[Arkana]

11. Wow.

I'm guessing all of them offered him mucho dinero in the way of scholarships? Cause the one that offered the most is the one he should pick.

[superpatriotman]

12. THIS is a true Superhero!

May he live long and prosper

[Blue_Tires]

13. lol people still can't accept it

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/03/kwasi-enin-reddit-ivy-leauge-racist_n_5079680.html

[DrDan]

15. a product of public schools - congratulations to him - and to his teachers!

[KamaAina]

19. They left out the best part

http://news.yahoo.com/college-admissions-kwasi-enin-aces-ivys-them-now-200453320.html

Kwasi has not decided which school to attend and is still waiting to see financial aid packages, according to Newsday. He added, though, that he liked Yale.

Boola boola! -K-A, Y'85

[La Lioness Priyanka]

20. i love how some people's first reaction to this is how unfair affirmative action is

instead of being really impressed that a kid was able to achieve this without the privileges that come with being wealthy or white.

[Vashta Nerada]

21. Okay...so how much did he spend on the application fees alone?

[winter is coming]

24. I think there's a universal application that lets you apply to several schools at once, these days.

No idea whether how many of the Ivies use it.

[AverageJoe90]

27. I would like to wish this fellow the best of luck. May he shine brightly! nt

[Tarheel_Dem]

30. Congrats to him for his hard work, and to his parents for getting him there.

[CFLDem]

32. Very impressive!

[bigwillq]

33. Good for him.

K and R

[brush]

34. In 2040 I expect to see him on the dem presidential ticket nt

[countryjake]

37. David Letterman had him on last night doing the Top Ten...

"Top Ten Ways To Make Your College Application Stand Out" as presented by Kwasi Enin, who has been accepted into all 8 Ivy League schools.