Accepted to all eight Ivies, he chooses
Gilman’s Johnson picks Harvard after achieving goal he’d worked for since age 6
The Baltimore student who was
“Harvard College Class of 2022!!” Mekhi Johnson posted to Facebook on May 1, college decision day.
Johnson, a senior at the Gilman School, is one of just a handful of students across the nation to be accepted into all eight of the elite institutions. He’s been working toward that accomplishment since he was 6 years old, when he first heard a story on the radio about a boy who had gotten into all of the Ivies.
“Even at 6, he was pretty serious and goal-oriented,” his mother, Tawana Thomas Johnson, said previously . “He kept this idea in front of him through all those years.”
Johnson said he found out about his slew of acceptances while out to dinner with his mother at Red Lobster.
He checked his admissions status at each school in quick succession: Yale, in. Columbia, in. Cornell, in. And then finally, Harvard.
“As soon as I saw I got into Harvard, my mom started screaming,” the 17-year-old Baltimore student
Johnson hopes to study political science and eventually attend law school.
He has attended Gilman since first grade, with a near-perfect GPA. He edits the school’s yearbook and literary magazine, plays in the jazz band and drum line, and works on musical theater.
He sings with the Gilman a capella choir, serves as Diversity Council president and is a National Merit Scholarship Program commended student.
Johnson also volunteers with a group that serves elementary school students from low-income neighborhoods.
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