An exceptional Miami teen has been accepted to all of the eight institutions considered Ivy League. The second-generation American said she “decided to shoot my shot at all of them,” and had no idea she would have her pick of the litter.
Ashley Adirika, a 2022 Miami Beach Senior High School graduate who wore a “Black Girl Magic” sash over her chest at her June 1 commencement ceremony, was accepted into Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale this year. The student made history for her school as she becomes a part of the 12% of applicants to be admitted into at least one of the prestigious institutions since 2018.
The feat becomes more spectacular when considering over the 2021-2022 application season Yale accepted 4.5 percent, Columbia said yes to 3.7 percent and Harvard had its lowest admission class in the university’s history, only accepting 3.2 percent.
“I just decided to shoot my shot at all of them and see if it would land. And I had no idea that I would get accepted into all of them,” she told CNN this month.
The news was announced on March 31, which is this year’s Ivy Day, the day each school shares who will have a slot in the upcoming freshman class at the school. The 17-year-old said she was floored.
Adirika found out the news as she was surrounded by family members, including her four siblings, she recalled being overwhelmed with tears.
“On Ivy Day, I remember crying a lot and just being extremely surprised,” she said.
Applying and getting in seems to be the easy part for this African-American whiz-kid. The toughest ordeal was deciding between Yale and Harvard, two of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the country. Ultimately, she thought about her future goals and chose the school that would best prepare her for a career in government.
The former high school debate team member and student council president, confessed, “Before the college application process, Yale was actually my top choice.”
“But when I did further research for what I want to do specifically, which is explorations in policy and social policy and things of that nature,” she conceded, “Harvard just had a better program.”
She will enter the school 100 years after the death of Harvard’s first-ever admitted African American student, Richard Theodore Greener. Greener, too, had an interest in government, graduating in 1870 with his Associate Bachelor’s degree and becoming a professor, lawyer and diplomat.
She also joins after the institution announced it effort to recognize and share in a type of social reparation to the descendants of those Black bondage men and women that served the campus in the late 1600s as slaves. The school set up a $100 million fund for scholars and students to study the school’s connection to slavery.
Adirika’s admission, though not connected, comes weeks after a lawsuit was filed against the university for profiting off the images of enslaved Africans without proper permission.
Bess Rodriguez, her former debate coach at nearby Carol City Middle School, said, “She was very smart and articulate. Some of the debate topics were so sophisticated, like should the U.S. sell arms to Saudi Arabia. She dug into the material; she was always so well prepared.”
Rodriguez saw those skills early on but was not the only one to see how ferociously brilliant the young lady was in the craft.
“The other students would say, ‘Oh no, we have to debate Ashley.’ College debaters and local attorneys would come up to me and say, ‘Wow, we can’t believe she’s in eighth grade. She should be an attorney,’” she recalled.
She said, “In eighth grade, I fell in love with the ability to think about the world we live in and find targeted solutions to those issues.”
Adirika plans on joining the debate team at Harvard.
“I am really passionate about policy and using policy to empower communities. And so, in the short term, for me, that looks like becoming a lawyer,” she says. “But in the long term, I want to use that as a platform to do work in policy.”
As a high school student, she demonstrated an admirable sense of tenacity and focus. Adirika did not live in the district closest to Miami Beach Senior High School and opted to commute two hours each way to attend the school. It was the school her older siblings went to, and she was familiar with the opportunities the school would afford during those important years, like the speech and debate team, according to the Miami Herald.
One of the last honors she achieved at MBSHS was winning the Miami Herald/ El Nuevo Herald Silver Knight in Speech, besting all other student competitors in the Miami-Dade high school population.
As a debate team member, she boasts of coming in second at the state championship and qualified to represent Miami-Dade County in the national debate in Kentucky this year, proving she indeed is a force to contend with.
Adirika is also a community stakeholder and founder of the Our Story Our Worth organization, an organization that provides mentorship, confidence-building and sisterhood to girls and young women of color. She wants to continue to make an impact on others while matriculating through school.
“When I was in elementary school, I had the privilege of being a part of a mentorship program for girls,” she shared on the organization’s website. “I was mentored by women in college, and they taught me important skills, instilled confidence into me and gave me the outlet I needed to express myself. I will never forget the sense of solace that their support gave me.”
“Unfortunately, as I … continued into middle and high school, that sense of solace began to fade. There was a lack of programs available for girls, much less those of color.”
The core of this belief is that everyone stands on the shoulders of someone and has the ability to lift as they climb. Adirika points to her mother who emigrated to the U.S. from Nigeria three decades ago, as her inspiration — teaching her these lessons.
“She has just instilled in me the value of education and working hard, as well as all of the strong women in my life, like my older sisters,” the school says. “For me, it’s about making the most of the opportunities that I have at my fingertips and really just making sure that the sacrifices that have been made for me weren’t done in vain.”
Her sister Tracy Adirika has a huge influence in her life and inspired her to be her best self and give back. She stated that her mother and big sis, “empowered me and supported me throughout the entire way. So whatever dream I have, big or small, they’ve just been my No. 1 fans.”
Like the soon-to-be freshman, Tracy is also brilliant. She was accepted into Princeton University, another Ivy League, when she was in high school. However, she had to turn down the opportunity to become the guardian of her siblings during a difficult time in the family’s life.
Tracy, the eldest sister, enrolled in Miami Dade College and later transferred to the University of Florida. Her ivy league dreams are redeemed through her sister, as she calls her Ivy acceptances a “full circle moment.”
“She just displayed this drive and determination and motivation to achieve well beyond her dreams,” Tracy told the Herald.
“Seeing her mold into this beautiful woman, I can’t express enough how proud of her I am. It’s been a great joy to watch her grow [and] to know I had a hand in raising her.”
Things have been tough for the Adirika children, but the way they view their lives and their futures are not based on their struggles.
Adirika said, “I don’t want to be defined by any of my struggles. I want to use those experiences to create an impact.”
In total, Adirika was accepted to fourteen schools including the Ivies. She regretfully rejected admissions from Stanford, Vanderbilt and Emory.
