Ifeoma White-Thorpe, a 17-year-old senior from Morris Hills High School in Rockaway, New Jersey, has been suddenly swamped by media coverage thanks to her college application success. On Tuesday (Apr. 4), it was reported that White-Thorpe received acceptance letters from every Ivy League school—Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, Yale, in addition to acceptance letters from Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
White-Thorpe has yet to decide which school she will ultimately attend, though she is expected to study biology and pursue a career in cardiology.
When White-Thorpe received the eighth acceptance letter, she started shaking. “I was like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh! Like this might be eight out of eight and I clicked it, and it said ‘Congratulations!’ and I was like, oh my goodness,” White-Thorpe explained to local news reporters.
While this is an extraordinary feat, it has been accomplished a handful of times in the last couple of years. In 2016, Augusta Uwamanzu-Nna and Kelly Hyles were each accepted into all eight Ivy League schools and Uwamanzu-Nna and Hyles both ultimately chose to attend Harvard University. Harold Ekeh, who accomplished this in 2015, and Kwasi Enin, who was accepted to all eight in 2014, went to Yale University.
White-Thorpe is the president of Morris Hills’ student government association. She was recognized by Coca-Cola last month as one of the top 150 students in the entire country. In 2015, she was the winner of the national Selma Speech and Essay Contest.
She is just as active outside of school as she was within the Morris Hills walls. She volunteers at a local food bank, a homeless shelter and offers her services to the American Heart Association. Morris Hills principal Todd Toriello praised White-Thorpe, calling her a respectful individual who challenged herself with the toughest courses available.