A good education is the dream of any academician, better yet to study at the so-called Ivy League schools in the United States is the cherry on top.
One Derek Onserio a 19-year-old, born to Kenyan parents from Minnesota, was the recipient of admission letters from all eight Ivy League schools in the US, as reported by the Daily Nation on April 22, 2017.
After scoring straight As in senior high school, Derek applied to all eight prestigious universities, despite advice from his teachers at Providence Academy to apply to at most three colleges.
Luckily, he was accepted by Havard, Yale, Columbia, Brown, Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth, and the University of Pennsylvania and this is no mean feat.
This made Derek the most sought after person in Minnesota at the time. Many of the universities were willing to have him study for the entire four years without paying fees. He chose Havard.
In January 2017, Havard received 39,506 applications. Only 2,056 were drafted to join the university and Derek was among them.
His father, identified as Joshua Onserio, in a phone interview with the Sunday Nation on April 20, 2017, revealed that the family had received numerous phone calls from people congratulating Derek.
“We received more than 200 calls to congratulate us,” Mr. Onserio stated, highlighting that Derek had made appearances in several media houses, the most notable being a cameo on the Star Tribune, the largest newspaper in Minnesota.
“For his success, we thank God. We don’t take credit; we thank God that he was accepted to the Ivy League schools,” Onserio was quoted.
Being a staunch Seventh Day Adventist family, Derek and his father revealed that prayer had helped them traverse through life.
“I see prayer as one of my secrets to success. Before every test I took and every application I submitted, we prayed. I think that was very valuable,” he explained to Sunday Nation over the phone.
Onserio is a member of the council of elders at Minnetonka SDA Church where Derek is also a deacon.
Academic success apparently runs in the family since his two elder sisters also joined Ivy League schools, one at Havard and the other at Dartmouth.
Derek is a member of the Havard Krokodiloes, the university’s oldest men’s acapella singing group.
