[size=14pt]Meet the Nigerian student accepted into all eight Ivy League schools[/size]

By Taylor Vecsey and Natalie O'Neill April 5, 2015 | 1:43am


HAROLD EKEH WITH ALL EIGHT ACCEPTANCE LETTERS




A Nassau County whiz kid was accepted into all eight Ivy League schools — a year after another Long Island teen hit the rare academic jackpot.
Elmont Memorial HS senior Harold Ekeh boasts a grade-point average of 100.5 percent, an SAT score of 2270 and was a semifinalist for the national Intel Science Talent Search.

“My parents’ hard work and my hard work finally paid off,” Ekeh, 17, told The Post.

Ekeh now has his pick of the nation’s elite institutions of higher learning: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania — none of which accept more than 14 percent of applicants.

He’s leaning toward Yale, where Kwasi Enin, 18, the son of Ghanaian immigrants from Mastic Beach, LI, who completed the Ivy sweep last year, now attends.

Ekeh moved to New York from Nigeria at age 8 and wowed admissions officers with an essay about the challenges he braved while “coming to America,” he said.

“My parents left comfortable lives in Nigeria for their kids to have opportunities. So I take advantage of every single opportunity that has been afforded to me,” said Ekeh, who hopes to become a neurosurgeon.

“It was very difficult to adjust . . . I spoke English but with a very heavy accent. It was like, ‘What is this kid saying?’ ” he continued.
In his free time he does what most other teens his age don’t do — toiling over biochemistry experiments. His grandma’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis — and his own inspiration to find a cure for the degenerative brain disease — fueled his passion for science, he said.

The hardworking student, a salutatorian who also plays the drums, mentors and volunteers for a social-justice campaign, credited his parents, Paul and Roselin — former clerks at a Target store in Queens — for challenging him to study and do his best, “no matter how hard times got,” he said.

“No matter how many times they would get knocked down, they were always positive, he said.
“Anybody who sees my story can say, ‘If he can do it, I can do it.’ I’m just a kid who had a real strong support system.”
Ekeh was accepted into the other five schools he applied to: MIT, NYU, Johns Hopkins University, Stony Brook University and Vanderbilt University.

“Never would I have expected to get into all 13 schools. I just wanted to increase my chances of getting into one of them,” he said.
He took his amazing accomplishments in stride. When he learned he’d been admitted to all of the country’s best schools last Tuesday, he celebrated by going to Bible study — and then to Chipotle.

“I don’t see it as an accomplishment for me. I see it as an accomplishment for my community. I hope it inspires the younger generation, not just in Elmont, but overall,” he said.



http://nypost.com/2015/04/05/meet-the-student-accepted-into-all-eight-ivy-league-schools/

Front page, pls. Let's celebrate this kid!

That's a genius. I hope he won't allow other things to distract him in college.

neurosurgeon? very difficult, tasking profession. Only geniuses do that, by the way how many neurosurgeons do we have in Nigeria? I don't think we have any.

What we have are glorified Medical doctors that can't even administer anaesthetic.Medical profession in Nigeria as been profilerated. Parents use money to buy admission into medical school for their children but kudos to Ivy league schools in US. No matter how much money you have, if you ain't academically brilliant, no space for you.

juicyjoint:
That's a genius. I hope he won't allow other things to distract him in college.

I hope so too!

bennyrazz:
neurosurgeon? very difficult, tasking profession. Only geniuses do that, by the way how many neurosurgeons do we have in Nigeria? I don't think we have any.

What we have are glorified Medical doctors that can't even administer anaesthetic.Medical profession in Nigeria as been profilerated. Parents use money to buy admission into medical school for their children but kudos to Ivy league schools in US. No matter how much money you have, if you ain't academically brilliant, no space for you.

lol

nice one!
teens shud take a cue

jealous

Wow! Wish to have kids like him someday!

Impressive. His parents must be proud.

Impressive!

The kind of kids that help you go to sleep every night with a smile on your face and a warm feeling in your tummy
Awon omo olori ire
Awon omo sansan bi owo

.