Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Teen in quandary as colleges flock to admit him
MICHAEL Brown’s streak started in December, when the high school senior checked on his application status at Stanford University. He had applied there early, it was his top-choice college then, and fought off nerves as he sat down at a laptop, surrounded by his best friends and his mother.
“Y’all, I’m gonna press ‘View Update’,” Micheal said. His classmates huddled around the screen, camera phones at the ready.
A second later, the room erupted in screams. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Micheal, 17, shouted in disbelief. He leaped from his chair and burst into tears.
Berthinia Rutledge- Brown hugged her son as he wept.
“You made it!” one of his friends yelled, as the teens closed in on Michael for a group hug.
What Michael and his mother didn’t know then was that Stanford would be only the beginning of an unbelievable run.
Over the next several months, more acceptances would roll in for the standout student at Houston’s Lamar High School.
Among them were Yale, Princeton, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, the University of Texas at Austin and Georgetown (the only one to send a paper letter, he noted). And finally, last week, Harvard. In all, Michael applied to 20 colleges and was accepted to all 20 of them, with full scholarships to each.
“I was nervous for each one because no one ever wants to be rejected, but especially for Stanford,” Michael said. “And I did not expect or think I’d get into all schools until I got into Stanford.”
The unusual feat is not without precedent.
And at Lamar High School in the Houston Independent School District, which has more than 3 300 students, more than half of the student body is considered at risk of dropping out.
“If you look strictly at statistics and demographics, then the cards were stacked against him,” Lamar High School principal James McSwain told the Houston Chronicle.
For Rutledge-Brown, her son’s success is all the more poignant because of their “amazing little journey”. Michael was her “rainbow baby”, she said – born after she had lost three pregnancies before him.
And she noted that, although she got divorced when her son was in elementary school, Michael’s father has remained in his son’s life.
“Mike’s a good kid. He’s been easy to raise,” she said. “I’m really grateful… (Early on) I noticed that Mike was very smart, so I knew that he needed to be challenged.”
She said Michael really became focused on his education in the sixth grade. “He made the decisions, so I just kind of backed up and let him do his thing,” Rutledge-Brown said.
“In high school, he discovered other extracurricular activities that he loved like debating and really set his sights on going to college.”
Rutledge-Brown told the New York Times she cried at an Emerge orientation when she became aware that Michael could go to a university that previously seemed inaccessible.
“I cried because I realised that there was a chance that my child would get the education he deserves, the one I could not afford to pay for,” she said.
Meanwhile, Michael said it was his mother who inspired him to push himself.
When he was in elementary school, Rutledge-Brown returned to school at Houston Community College to earn her associate degree. Her efforts then were not lost on her young son.
“After she got divorced, she decided she needed to get a better job,” Michael told the Houston Chronicle. “That’s the first time I understood what going to college might look like. And seeing how important it was to my mom was important to me. I don’t even think she really knew that I saw, that it had an impact on me, but it did.”
When it came time to apply to college, Michael had already achieved an impressive high school academic record to go with his extracurricular and volunteer activities.
He applied to Stanford first, but also 19 other schools that he could see himself going to. “He’s very methodical. He thinks through what he’s doing,” she said.
Michael now has a month to weigh his many options before making his decision. While he had previously been set on Stanford, he now says he’s not sure.
His mother said the attention has been jarring for her son, who tends to be shy, but that he decided to share his story in case it gives other students hope.
“I want to remain humble through all this,” Michael said. “Out of all the students to achieve similar feats, I am just very happy and very honoured to share my story and inspire other students.” – Washington Post.