You think the kid sent our press releases? Maybe it’s just coincidence, i.e., his local paper had a story about him and one of the larger NY news outlets picked up and others followed suit?
I assume it started with his high school and local paper and mushroomed from there in other press.I doubt the kid initiated the publicity.
Does not matter one bit. The most powerful word when it comes to such a matter is … none other than a firm NO. And if you want to be polite, NO INTEREST whatsoever, but thanks!
Regardless of the circumstances, it is obvious he did not have people in his life smart enough to avoid the publicity.
Sophisticated enough? Not necessarily “smart enough.”
Okidoki, we can change smart enough with sophisticated enough. Fwiw, we really do not know anything about the sophistication of the parents before they emigrated from Nigeria. And, my comment was not only about his parents. There are people in his life who might or should have known better, including the gleeful participants in the video linked to this story.
Some might not agree that this story will ultimately backfire on Harold and students in similar situations. He will have earned a reasonable level of notoriety by the time he takes his first class at Yale or Harvard. Not all eyes will be equally positive. There might be more than a few that have friends who were left behind with better stats — does that sound familiar in certain circles? Farfetched to think that this might fuel the AA debate, or the lawsuits from that Fisher supporter?
As far as the schools. there will be 12 schools that will get the “sorry” and they might a lot less open to reach to the same school in the future. Who knows … we can speculate endlessly.
And there is the story that is broadcast over and over. Do we really have to believe that the schools were blown away with his essay about leaving the heimat? Could he have been admitted despite such an essay? Again, we will never know, but chances are that the essay is hardly the compelling reason presented. Copycats might think differently.
Again, there are no reason to minimize the accomplishments of this young man. In my book, he clearly deserves his success, and this for a number of clear reasons. I do think, however, that he made a colossal blunder to listen to the sirens songs and subject himself to this type of limelight. People, as many here have done, will applaud the outcome and will not second-guess any of it. Others, however, might not be so charitable, and especially when the unlucky ones are outnumbered the successful one by more than 10 to 1!
He would have been much better to continue to fly under the radar screen and start school with the label “Oh, you are THAT guy!”
Xiggi, his mother works as a home health aide and his dad works as a civilian employee of the NYPD directing traffic. It’s not like they came here to be college professors. Good for him and good for his parents too. Do you really think he’ll be walking around with a cloud of publicity over his head come August when he leaves for college? Have you heard of this happening to last year’s Long Island kid who got into all 8 Ivies?
Here is the flip side. Do the Ivys stop at the number of students they want to apply . The more the better for them. Then they can reject more and have higher yield rates and look better in the rankings. So why cant students play the same game. The more choices you have the better off you are as a student. He probably thought he would get into six schools and didn’t know which ones out of the 13 he would get in so he wanted to maximize his options. Good for him.
How many of you have bought a house. Did you just look at two or three houses or did you look at 20 or 30 before making multiple offers. Same principle just different facts
^ Here you go, in case you want to search for more details:
Obviously, considering the mentioning of the essay, we cannot safely assume that everything that appears on the internet is true.
A “comfortable” life is open to interpretation.
Edited to add: I know several Haitian immigrant families who had “comfortable” lives in Haiti (years before the earthquake). By that I mean that they owned a house and sent their kids to private school, not a major expense. But they were not sophisticated intellectuals there and work hard at blue-collar jobs here. They prefer NYC to their home country because here they could work hard and not have to worry about politics.
Wow, @katliamom. Wow, that’s all I gotta say. Subtext aplenty.
" It’s so clear what they cared about." - Yea… what many parents here care about … getting the best scholarship and/or financial aid possible. He probably did not expect to get accepted to them all.
“Wow, @katliamom. Wow, that’s all I gotta say. Subtext aplenty.” – what is your comment in reference to, @lindyk8 ?
Can we for a second admit that competitive schools are more similar than not? Similar in very important ways, different in…mmmm…less important ways? Certainly less important for lower SES students, who benefit quite splendidly from the “bump” in school prestige as the old-timers should remember from the often-quoted study.
Lower SES kids are also often on the verge of not affording a SUNY, and with an Ivy acceptance they are able to go for free.
Haha a Korean guy at my school applied to all eight ivies, NYU, and Amherst. 3.5+ GPA, 36 ACT and rejected from all and waitlisted at the last two. Ouch
Anyway… Interesting how he wants to be a neurosurgeon and “cure” Alzheimer’s. Don’t neurologists work with Alzheimer’s patients more than neurosurgeons? And I read that he wants to (possibly) major in neurobiology but he’s leaning towards Yale… which doesn’t have a neurobio major.
Good on him though. I don’t want to knock his accomplishments. I’m just a little confused by his decisions.
Yup, I noticed the same things but was afraid to mention them initially for fear of being considered uncharitable. It seems that neuroscience is the new hot major for many smart kids these days, and they all want to cure either Alzheimer’s or autism. That does not make him particularly original, though he is no doubt sincere, and neither does the seemingly predictable essay it sounds like he wrote. The details cited by Niches bothered me even more because they indicate a lack of both general knowledge of his own professed interests (which presumably a candidate so fantastic as to have gotten in every Ivy would possess) and a lack of basic research about the schools to which he applied (which breaks the cardinal rule of tailoring your applications to the school, which allegedly is essential to get into even a few schools with such low admissions rates, forget about getting into some 11 of them.) So there are aspects to this story which make me scratch my head and perhaps question the veracity of what adcoms want us to believe about their selection process. None of this means he is not a deserving and we all wish him well, but yes, there is an unfortunate subtext here which cannot be named. Once the story is published, it’s hard not to wonder how and why it happened.
An immigrant Asian (or eastern European) with that profile and those accomplishments would never get into 8 Ivys.
Oh shoot I just realized I wrote 3.5+. I meant 4.5+…
I’m agreeing with Xiggi, that’s disturbing, I better take a pill…
Why are there people fighting over this- it’s an amazing accomplishment for this young man no matter what and I’m sure he’s extremely bright and deserved this great achievement. I hope he goes on to do amazing things. Can’t everyone just be happy for the guy?
I believe people need to be more capable of arguing in the abstract about policies or trends, without resorting to accusing the opposing side of holding a personal grudge or petty grievance. No one objects to the particular student here–it’s the admissions principles at work that are being disputed.
Yes, private schools can do whatever they want; that is a given. But can we believe what admissions counselors tell us about what they look for (a good fit between the student and their institution), when every single Ivy feels one particular student is a match for their supposedly distinctive school? Can we believe them when they tell us how sick they are of the same over-used essay themes, when they all clamor for a kid who wrote an essay with one of those over-used themes? What obligation for special consideration “should” American colleges feel with regard to black African immigrants whose ancestors never lived under slavery? Is it the same obligations they owe American blacks or Native Americans? Should ANY group of people be given special admissions status here in the US because of skin color or race? Or if it’s the successful immigrant struggle that we’re to believe was the element being rewarded here, then shouldn’t we expect to see similar admissions results for newly immigrated Russians or Koreans? Do we? If not, why not?