AVON -- It’s that time of year when students decide where they’re going to go to college and two teens in Connecticut are picking from a stack of Ivy League Schools.
Mckynzie Romer of Avon got into seven Ivy League Schools: Brown, Harvard, Cornell, Yale, Columbia, UPenn and Princeton. She also got into Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, McGill, and Tufts. Romer got offered a Nutmeg Scholarship to UConn and a full ride to Fordham University.
She currently attends Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford where she said she engages in more than just academics.
“I learned that it paid off to be involved and stay involved in the things I was passionate about,” she said. “I didn’t want to give up things I enjoyed to get into college and I think colleges might have seen that.”
She described herself as an artsy person who drums in the jazz band, ballroom dances, and does improvisational comedy.
Romer said she has a passion for languages so she applied to college as a French Major, but also wants to go pre-med.
She said she never expected to get into so many Ivies.
“I wasn’t really expecting anything from the process I applied to a bunch of schools hoping I would get into at least one or two in the end and then a bunch of them came in and I was extremely surprised,” Romer said.
She’s not the only Connecticut student with an impressive college roster, Greater Hartford Classical Magnet School student Shay Pezzulo said she got into six Ivy League schools.
Pezzulo got accepted to Cornell, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, UPenn and Dartmouth. She also got an acceptance letter from Stanford and four other schools.
“It's absolutely so exciting and so amazing that I’m just so lucky and so grateful,” she said.
She said she’s narrowed down her choices to Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Columbia, hoping to major in the social sciences or classics while following a pre-medical track.
“I think a big misconception these days is you can just work, get good grades and then that’s your ticket to go to these schools,” she said. “What happens is there's so much more that goes into it.”
Pezzulo of Burlington said she spent hours on about 50 essays to get into the schools and made sure to show her passion for the classics such as Latin and Greek.
“I think I learned more about myself writing these questions and essays about myself than I have in my entire life,” Pezzulo said.
In a Facebook post, she expressed disappointment in what she calls an unfair admissions process.
“College admissions is unfair and difficult beyond others can imagine,” she wrote. “Getting good grades isn’t enough; you have to work your ass off and then *maybe* be considered – if you’re lucky. I realize I’m extremely and rarely lucky…”
Pezzulo said regardless of what school any student gets into, she believes if you truly care about what you’re doing, you’ll be successful.