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Guyanese Kelly Hyles gets accepted into 21 US universities
– Eight Ivy League schools among them
(CNN Money) Kelly Hyles, a 17-year-old who lives in Queens, New York, got 21 acceptance
Guyanese Kelly Hyles
letters from colleges around the country.
While she’s a straight A student, she’s the first to admit that getting into so many schools didn’t come without a lot of hard work.
Her studiousness is ingrained in her: Hyles spent the first decade of her life in a small village called Vryheid’s Lust in Guyana.
“They were a bit more serious about school,” said Hyles of kids from her village. “Teachers are allowed to beat you — It wasn’t anything severe, but it keeps kids in check.” She moved to the U.S. when she was 11.
Hyles lives with her mother, who has set an example of what hard work looks like. Her mom works two jobs — she’s a home aide and a certified nursing assistant. Hyles commutes an hour and a half every day to the High School for Math, Science and Engineering in Harlem, one of New York’s nine specialized high schools.
“It’s required a lot of sacrifices,” she said.
Here’s how Hyles attracted the attention of so many prestigious colleges. Hyles is one of less than two dozen black students in her senior class, which has more than 130 people.
It’s a common theme throughout New York City’s specialized high schools, a fact she found troubling.
“I am convinced that the decrease is not due to intellectual aptitude, but to lack of preparation and confidence,” she wrote in one her personal statements.
So she did something about it. Hyles partnered with the DREAM programme, which prepares students for the Specialized High School Admissions Test. For three summers, she spent every weekday mentoring students at her former Brooklyn middle school.
“My main goal remains to replace self-doubt with self-confidence,” she wrote.
When Hyles took the SAT for the first time in May 2015, she wasn’t satisfied with the results.
“It didn’t go as well as I had wanted,” she said. “I was a little bummed and discouraged.”
She channeled that energy into studying more. A classmate gave her test books he need longer needed.
“I reused his books — and did much better,” she said.
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