LONG ISLAND, NY(TIP): A Long Island high school senior has created a sort of history by being accepted to all eight Ivy League schools. 17-year-old Kwasi Enin is the firstgeneration son of immigrants who has accomplished this featwhich few other students have ever attempted.
All 8 Ivy League Schools-Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, Yale and the University of Pennsylvaniahave sent acceptance letters all to his home in Shirley. “The yesses kept coming,” Enin, a William Floyd High School student who wants to be a physician, told Newsday. He said he couldn’t believe it. Neither could Nancy Winkler, a guidance counselor at Enin’s school. “It’s a big deal when we have students apply to one or two Ivies,” Winkler told USA Today.
“To get into one or two is huge. This is extraordinary.” Few students even apply to all eight ultra-selective universities, college counselors told USA Today, because each school looks for different qualities in their freshman classes. Each college accepts fewer than 15 percent of applicants. Enin, a first-generation American whose parents emigrated from Ghana, scored 2,250 out of 2,400 on the SAT, according to USA Today. That places him in the 99th percentile for all students taking the exam. Enin told USA Today he got the idea to apply to all eight Ivy League schools in 10th or 11th grade and said each of them had qualities he liked.
He was also accepted at Duke and three State University of New York campuses. The Long Island teenager who got accepted into all eight Ivy League colleges was whipped into shape by his strict mom and dad – who hovered nearby, encouraging him to push himself, he told The Post. “They were helicopter parents. They monitored everything. They said, ‘You have a mind, and you can do it. Always do your best,’?” said Kwasi Enin, 17, a senior at William Floyd High School in Mastic Beach. He added, “They taught me 95 percent isn’t good enough .?.?. I’m proud, honored, appreciative.”
The whiz kid’s parents – who are both nurses and immigrants from Ghana – also never let him forget he’s lucky to be in the United States, said his dad, Ebenezer Enin, 54, of Shirley. “I say, ‘You have all the resources in the world. Whatever you need, you have it here. You don’t know how lucky you are to be in America. You have no idea how blessed you are. I’m telling you,’?” Ebenezer Enin said. “I tell him academically, performancewise, school-wise, you’ve got to stay at the top of the game. He’s been disciplined; he’s been trained; he’s been guided. We’ve motivated him,” he said.
The hardworking teen – who plays viola, sings in the school orchestra and competes as a shot-putter – applied to a total of 12 colleges because he feared he wouldn’t get into a single one, he said. “That was the logic, because you know how hard they are to get into .?.?. It was the biggest surprise,” said Enin, who ended up getting into all 12 schools. To apply, he sent out an application essay about the role of music in his life.
“Music has become the spark of my intellectual curiosity,” he wrote. The essay, with his straight-A grades and 2,250-out-of-2,400 SAT score were enough to ace the applications. Now he must choose from the eight Ivies – Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton and Yale – schools that boast acceptance rates of 14 percent to 5.9 percent. He says he hasn’t made a decision on which school to attend, but says his preference is Yale.
Be the first to comment