Tisha Ricketts
17 year old Kelly Hyles moved to the US from Guyana with her mom in 2009 seeking a better life. Today, Kelly and her mom can celebrate. Kelly has just received 8 emphatic acceptances from every single Ivy League school.
Yes, you may say here we go again, another story about someone from Guyana now living somewhere else and we are pretending as if this has to anything to do with Guyana.
But before you make that assumption, let me explain Kelly’s journey and perhaps you will see why it is important to recognize her Guyanese background.
Like many people living in Guyana, hard work is a natural part of everyday life. That hard work which reflects the Guyanese way of life contributes to the strong drive to succeed, even when condition are not perfect. Kelly and her mom took that with them to New York where they continue work hard.
Even though Anetta Hyles, Kelly’s mother, a nurse’s aide who worked two jobs while raising her daughter as a single mom, she remain positive. So when Anetta and Kelly found out about the acceptance into college, her reaction was natural..
“I was in tears of joy, I am screaming and shouting, ‘Thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus” she said in an interview with PEOPLE.
Here is the story carried by CNN Business
You can also read more about Kelly Hyles in an article by People
Kelly stands out for her “powerful intellect” and “strong work ethic,” says Adolfo Garcia-Ocana, Ph.D, a professor of medicine and head of the lab where Kelly works. “Kelly’s performance has been outstanding,” he writes in an email.
As Kelly Hyles and her mother leaned over a computer in their modest Queens living room to check what colleges the senior got into, joy mixed with shock overwhelmed them.
Harvard, Yale, Princeton? Yes. Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania? Also yes. Eight emphatic acceptances from every single Ivy League school.
Kelly, who commutes an hour and a half every day to the prestigious High School for Math, Science and Engineering at City College of New York, is the second student in the New York City area this year to get into all eight Ivy League schools.
