Harold Ekeh, a senior at Elmont Memorial High School in Long Island, New York, has been accepted to all eight Ivy League schools — Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Penn, Dartmouth, and Cornell.
As the New York Post reported, Ekeh immigrated to the U.S. at age 8 from Nigeria, and spoke very little English at the time.
Now, with all eight acceptance letters in hand, 17-year-old Ekeh says proudly, "My parents’ hard work and my hard work finally paid off."
"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," he added. "No matter how many times they would get knocked down, they were always positive."
Ekeh's parents, Paul and Roselin, found clerk jobs at Target when they first arrived, and hopes to become a neurosurgeon one day so that he can cure his grandmother's Alzheimer's disease.
ABC News reported that Ekeh's strong suit is scientific research, but he also started a college prep mentoring program, served as editor-in-chief of his school newspaper, and vice president of the Model United Nations.
"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," he said.
In addition to the Ivy League schools, Ekeh was accepted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), New York University, Johns Hopkins University, Stony Brook University, and Vanderbilt University.
He said he is currently leaning toward Yale.
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