Ashley Adirika, a 17-year-old Nigerian-American woman, is among the 3.2% of applicants who were accepted into Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States.
A recent graduate of Miami Beach Senior High School in Florida, Ashley Adirika has always aspired to attend an Ivy League institution. To achieve this goal, she applied to every Ivy League school in the country.
When she opened her computer to check all of her applications on Ivy Day, she was shocked to learn that she had been accepted by all of the Ivy League universities, including Brown University, Columbia University, Dartmouth University, Harvard University, Penn University, Princeton University, and Yale University. Furthermore, she received a scholarship worth over $4 million.
Ashley and her family were overjoyed, and their happiness was palpable. Additionally, she received acceptance letters from Stanford University, Vanderbilt University, and Emory University.
“I just made the decision to try my luck with each of them and see what happens. I had no idea I would be accepted to all of them. I remember crying a lot on Ivy Day and just being amazed,” Ashley told CNN.
According to CNN, the likelihood of being admitted to one of the prestigious universities is estimated to be between three and eight percent. Since 2018, less than 12% of applicants have been admitted by the most selective colleges in the United States. In 2022, Yale accepted 4.5%, Columbia accepted 3.7%, and Harvard admitted only 3.2% of prospective students, the lowest percentage in the school’s history.
