A lifelong goal of Ashley Adirika’s has been to get admission to an Ivy League institution, therefore, towards the end of the autumn, she decided to take a risk and apply to all eight of them.

Ivy Day is the most-anticipated day of the year since it is the day on which elite universities reveal their first-year admission decisions. Ashley got on her computer to check for acceptance letters on Ivy Day.

And to the astonishment of the Florida adolescent, she was accepted to all of the institutions that she applied to, including Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale.

On that particular day, the young lady, who was 17 years old, was accompanied by members of her family, including her four brothers, who shared in her excitement as each fresh acceptance letter from the colleges was received.

This month, Ashley received her diploma from Miami Beach Senior High School, making her eligible to join a select club. Her accomplishment is even more remarkable when one considers that since 2018, none of the Ivy League schools have accepted more than 12% of its applications.

The very bright youngster was granted admission to seven more prestigious colleges in addition to Stanford, including Vanderbilt and Emory.

In the end, Ashley made her decision to attend Harvard, where she intends to study in government. She is interested in gaining a better understanding of how it operates and how policies might assist in reducing economic inequities in communities.

Prior to beginning the application process for colleges, she was torn between applying to Harvard and Yale. In spite of this, she chose the former option since it offered a superior curriculum in relation to what it was that she want to pursue.

Those who are familiar with Ashley aren’t surprised by her achievement at all, considering the fact that she was a driving force on the debate team and also served as president of the student council.

Bess Rodriguez, Ashley’s debate coach when she was in eighth grade and the one responsible for recruiting her for the team, said that Ashley was “extremely brilliant and eloquent.”

“The other students often remarked, ‘Oh no, we are required to argue with Ashley,’. When college debaters and lawyers from the community would approach me, they would remark things like, ‘Wow, we can’t believe she’s in eighth grade.’ ”

As a senior in high school, Ashley founded the nonprofit Our Story Our Worth. The mission of which is to empower girls and young women of color with mentoring, sisterhood, and confidence-building activities.

The great work ethic that Ashley has is in large part due to the influence of the women in her life, notably her mother, who raised five of her children on her own.

“She has simply instilled in me the importance of education and working hard, as well as all of the strong women in my life, including my elder sisters. For me, it’s about making the most of the chances 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”.

When she has leisure time, Ashley enjoys a variety of hobbies, including playing flag football, writing in her notebook, drawing, and composing music.

She donated the hoodies and caps that she received from all of the Ivy League institutions that she would not be attending to her nieces and nephews as a reminder that it is possible for them to achieve the same level of success as she has.