A 17-year-old South Florida student has gained admission to all eight Ivy League universities for 2026, and has selected Harvard as her favorite.
It was a surreal moment for the 17-year-old to be accepted into all the Ivy League schools, whose mother emigrated to the US from Nigeria three decades ago. https://t.co/NUoiXoxdRZ
— CNN International (@cnni) June 13, 2022
Ashley Adirika is a first-generation Nigerian-American, a debate champion, and hopes to alleviate inequality.
The Miami Beach Senior High School graduate also has been offered admission to Stanford, Vanderbilt, and Emory.
Ashley ended up choosing Harvard, which only accepted a record-low of 3.19% of applications for the class of 2026.
“Before the college application process, Yale was actually my top choice. But when I did further research for what I want to do specifically, which is explorations in policy and social policy and things of that nature, Harvard just had a better program,” Ashley explained to CNN.
She’ll start her Ivy League education in the fall and plans to go to law school after obtaining her undergraduate degree.
“I am really passionate about policy and using policy to empower communities. And so in the short term, for me, that looks like becoming a lawyer,” she told CNN.
“But in the long term, I want to use that as a platform to do work in policy.”