Texas high school student Micheal Brown was accepted to all 20 colleges he applied to with full scholarships, including four Ivy League universities.
The Lamar High School senior has a 4.68 GPA and has been involved in many extracurricular activities including debate, volunteering for political campaigns, and college prep programs that helped prepare him for his college years, the Houston Chronicle reported.
“It’s surprising I was accepted to all of them,” Brown told the newspaper Sunday when the last acceptances rolled in.
He hasn’t made a final decision yet but plans to visit more of the schools first. His short list includes Northwestern, Georgetown, Princeton, Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and Stanford, the Chronicle reported.
Brown credits seeing his mother get her college degree when he was in elementary school and being involved in the prep program EMERGE with helping him value education.
“I got very serious about finding ways to get extra-involved in my community and be prepared for college admissions when I got older,” he said, the Chronicle reported.
Brown said it was a matter of “finding what I enjoy and doing those things well,” including debate club and political activism.
“If you look strictly at statistics and demographics, then the cards were stacked against him,” Lamar Principal James McSwain told the Chronicle.
The teen's mother told The Washington Post that Micheal has been in charge of his own education and making the choices that led him to this point since sixth grade.
“He made the decisions, so I just kind of backed up and let him do his thing,” Berthinia Rutledge-Brown said, adding that her one rule was not to quit any activity in the middle of the season.
“I want to remain humble through all this,” Brown told the Post on Monday. “Out of all the students to achieve similar feats, I am just very happy and very honored to share my story and inspire other students.”
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