NYC Teen Accepted to All 8 Ivy League Schools
Kelly Hyles is a 17 year-old high school student residing in Queens, New York. The "A" student was accepted into 21 colleges and universities, including all 8 Ivy League schools*.
Originally from a small village in Guyana, Kelly moved to the US when she was 11 years old. Her journey was not easy, she not only had to become acclimated to a new country, city, and culture, but she knew she had to go the extra mile to succeed academically. Kelly studied harder, utilized tutors, and reached out to her teachers. In Kelly's words, "it took a lot of sacrifices."
Kelly admits to averaging 5 hours of sleep a night. The high school senior commutes an hour and a half each day to Harlem for school. Her specialized high school focuses on Math, Science and Engineering. Kelly's senior class is made up of 130 kids, with less than two-dozen being Black students. Her pivotal goal was to replace self-doubt with confidence in order to beat the odds.
In regards to testing, Kelly confessed that she wasn't the best standardized test-taker and had to retake the SAT's after not feeling comfortable with her scores from the first test. She decided to incorporate her "street smarts" with her "book smarts" and was able to improve her SAT score to her satisfaction.
Kelly attracted the attention of these prestigious schools through persistence, taking broader views of the world around her, being a well rounded student through school and community involvement, following her passion, and by becoming comfortable within her own skin. She utilized those qualities and efforts as she wrote her college application letters.
Kelly plans on becoming a Neurosurgeon with a strong interest in Parkinson’s disease. Although Harvard has been her dream school, Kelly Hyles will be visiting all of the schools before making her final decision.
* The 8 Ivy League Schools are: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University & Yale University.
