'I Started Thinking About College at 6 Years Old,' Says Teen Who Got Into 7 Ivy League Schools
High school senior Daria Rose racked up seven Ivy acceptance letters, and now she has to decide which school gets to have her. (Photo: Facebook/Sacred Heart Academy)
When college acceptance letters went out to high school seniors around the country last month, 18-year-old Daria Rose was hoping that she’d been accepted to one of the seven Ivy League schools she applied to.
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She was in for a major surprise.
“First I checked one school, and I got in there,” Daria tells Yahoo Parenting. “Then I checked another, and I was accepted there too.” One by one, she read letters from seven Ivies—Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth, the University of Pennsylvania, and Brown—and realized she’d made a clean sweep. Daria didn’t apply to Columbia University because, she says, it was too close to her Long Island, New York home.
Getting offers from so many elite universities is a remarkable achievement. And it reveals just how determined Daria is, because going to an Ivy was a dream she’d had since she was a little girl. “I love learning, and I started thinking about college at six years old,” she says. “I told myself that I wanted to go to the best school.”
Her mother Katrina Rose concurs. “Daria was motivated to get into a great college from day one,” Rose tells Yahoo Parenting. “She put 100 percent into her studies, and even a hurricane couldn’t stop her.”
It’s true: In October 2012, when Daria was a sophomore, Hurricane Sandy struck New York and destroyed her family’s home. “We lost our house and all of our belongings, first in a fire caused by Sandy and then a flood,” says Daria.
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In the weeks after Sandy subsided, her devastated family moved from hotel to hotel and then spent months living with Daria’s grandmother in Long Island. “It was rough, because you get to a point where all you want is to be in your own home,” she says. “But my teachers were understanding, and that made it easier.” Daria kept up her A average, which she’ll graduate with in May.
What’s left for the last weeks of her senior year? By May 1, Daria has to choose which school to attend. “I’m leaning toward Yale,” she says, adding that she plans to major in political science and then go to law school. She and her mom are busy making last-minute trips to different campuses, determined as always to make the right decision.
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