Get into all the Ivies!

With no expectations, New York teenager Harold Ekeh applied to 13 colleges, hoping to "maybe" get into Stony Brook University, about an hour east of his home in Elmont, Long Island. Then, in recent weeks, the cascade of reply letters came pouring in: Harvard. Yes. Yale. Yes. Princeton. Yes. Not only did he get accepted to all of the schools he applied to, those include all eight Ivy League institutions. That's right, the straight-A student has accomplished the rare feat of getting into all of the nation's Ivies — crediting his parents' work ethic for setting an example and a desire to strive in his adopted homeland after emigrating from Nigeria 10 years ago. And Ekeh isn't the first person to be accepted by the entire League, for he joins another Long Island teenager — Kwasi Enin, the first-generation son of Ghanian immigrants — who also was accepted to all eight Ivies last year. Enin chose Yale, but as for where Ekeh's going to college, he isn't quite sure but he would like to stay close to family. "I'm leaning towards Columbia right now because I'd like to stay in New York City for I guess the rest of my career and work at Mt. Sinai," Ekeh said, adding that America has given his family a life they might never have had in Nigeria. Sure beats a career in advance-fee fraud, doesn't it?