Light & Verity

The big reveal

Two incoming freshmen announced that they were coming to Yale in very big ways.

Ahmad: Michael Short/Courtesy Akintunde Ahmad. Enin: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Ahmad: Michael Short/Courtesy Akintunde Ahmad. Enin: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

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When a star athlete announces where he or she is going to college, the media is all over the story. This spring, it was nice to see that kind of attention given to a couple of academic stars—and nice that both of them chose Yale. It had been reported far and wide in April that Kwasi Enin ’18 (above right) of Long Island had been admitted to all eight Ivy League schools; at the end of the month, he held a news conference at his high school to announce that Yale had won him over with its Bulldog Days event for admitted students. On the other side of the country, inner-city Oakland teen Akintunde Ahmad ’18 (above left) had been admitted to Yale, Brown, Columbia, and several other schools. Invited onto Ellen DeGeneres’s talk show to announce his decision, the musician and baseball player said, “I’ve been a Bulldog at Oakland Tech for the past four years, so I’m going to continue to be a Bulldog. I’m headed to Yale University!”

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