Christina Adja (left, and with mates at commencement) is heading to Harvard College this fall, after turning down Yale and a number of other different prestigious colleges.
Left picture Emily Swanson/proper picture courtesy Christina Adja
Christina Adja, a South Bronx native who simply graduated from Central Park East Excessive College in East Harlem, is heading to Harvard this fall — after additionally being accepted to Yale, UPenn, Georgetown College and Smith Faculty. She was the primary pupil in her college to ever be accepted to a number of Ivy League colleges.
“As much as I’m kinda sad that I’ll be leaving New York City soon, it’s really something that’s great for me, you know,” Adja advised the Bronx Occasions in a June 26 interview.
Harvard has many legacy college students, which means one or each of their mother and father attended the varsity, however Adja didn’t have that benefit. Her mother and father are Togolese immigrants and her mother, who received an affiliate’s diploma again dwelling, works as a clerk at Montefiore and her dad, who didn’t attend faculty, drives horse-drawn carriages, primarily in Central Park.
Happily, Adja mentioned she had a terrific faculty counselor at college who stored all college students conscious of assorted alternatives that may assist them. Even so, she mentioned she frightened about her probabilities of getting right into a prestigious college. She hadn’t been accepted into the town’s specialised excessive colleges and wasn’t awarded a number of the biggest-name scholarships, so she thought maybe the Ivys had been a stretch.
However Adja leaned on her sturdy educational document, together with 4 Superior Placement programs this yr, and a broad vary of extracurricular expertise, together with recording a podcast for WNYC’s Radio Rookies program, a two-week journey to Botswana with the group Black Birthright and main peer-to-peer faculty utility tutoring at college. Adja additionally participated in afterschool and teenage programming with WHEDCo all all through elementary and highschool.
Nonetheless, when making use of for schools, Adja wasn’t sure whether or not she might beat the competitors — and even when she did, how her household might afford it. She utilized to 21 whole colleges, together with CUNY and SUNY, and when acceptance letters got here in from 5 prestigious however costly colleges, she was instantly nervous about how you can pay.
Her mother and father reassured her they’d work out the cash it doesn’t matter what, however they may not have totally grasped how a lot tuition actually is, Adja mentioned. At Harvard, full tuition for the 2025-26 educational yr is sort of $87,000, and at Yale, over $90,000.
When it got here to finalizing a choice and determining monetary help, Adja was decided to make her personal unbiased choices.
“I wanted to handle the financial side on my own, so I didn’t burden my parents so much,” she mentioned.
Happily, Harvard got here by way of with a beneficiant help package deal that the opposite colleges didn’t match. Seeing that, “I committed [to Harvard] randomly, in the middle of AP Calculus,” she mentioned.
As a South Bronx child, transferring to Cambridge, Mass. could also be a little bit of tradition shock, mentioned Adja. Throughout her one go to to campus, she discovered the city to be “old,” “comfortable” and oddly quiet with no music blaring. “It didn’t seem as quote-unquote dangerous as the South Bronx,” she mentioned.
Campus life was very artsy and politically lively, in line with Adja. She noticed pro-Palestine protestors pressuring the varsity to proceed opposing the Trump administration’s cuts to larger training. There was additionally a debate between Democratic and Republican college students and a dwell band efficiency.
“It was a weird, foreign environment, most definitely,” Adja mentioned.
However now, she’ll head from Highbridge to Harvard with confidence in her achievements and plans to attend legislation college afterwards. As her mother and father spend the summer time bragging to coworkers and strangers about their Ivy-bound daughter, Adja mentioned she’s each nervous and excited for her future.
“I’ve accomplished a lot within New York City,” she mentioned. “I’m ready to see what I’ll accomplish outside of New York City, in a completely different environment.”
