A Clean Sweep
One senior has achieved the impossible in the college admissions process.
April 1, 2023
Shortly after 7PM on March 30, senior Ben DeLoof was more than apprehensive of the news waiting in his email inbox. With his heart pounding against his chest, he first opened the all-important email from Dartmouth College.
‘“I was thrilled to find out that I was accepted to Dartmouth,” DeLoof said. “But I didn’t expect that to only be the beginning.”
DeLoof then opened six more letters, from Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania.
With each email, he had more reason to smile. Combined with an admittance to Harvard through the college’s Early Action program, DeLoof could claim the ultimate in college admissions bragging rights: he had been admitted to all eight Ivy League schools.
Saying he mostly prefers to keep to himself, DeLoof only came to North Allegheny at the beginning of the second semester of this school year. Previously, he attended Freeman Academy, a private school in Freeman, South Dakota.
“I’ve been severely disappointed by the lack of academic competition since I transferred to NA,” DeLoof said. “With so much free time on my hands, I’ve had plenty of time to think about what I should do with the next four years of my life.”
Despite achieving a seemingly impossible feat, DeLoof did not begin the application process with the specific goal of being admitted to every Ivy League school.
“I simply started off on solid footing with admittance to Harvard under their Early Action program,” DeLoof said. “From there, I decided, ‘Why not go for the whole enchilada?’”
DeLoof was blessed with an almost unheard-of financial aid offer from Harvard: not only would his tuition be free, but the College would actually pay him to attend. Clearly, DeLoof’s essays and extracurricular activities were golden.
“Even though I received a free ride from Harvard, I am still frustrated,” he said. “I would much prefer to drown in college debt like everyone else, for I know it would be of great benefit to my personal character.”
Still waiting for his financial aid offers from the other seven schools, DeLoof remains hopeful that they are not as senselessly generous as Harvard.
“Right now I’m mainly weighing Yale against Brown,” DeLoof said. “I would love to take my dream major, Quantitative Economics, at Brown, but the fact that the Yale School of Music offers a harp program is also a major draw to me.”
While most students are astounded at DeLoof’s legendary accomplishment, there are some exceptions, including senior John Oraton.
Deloof said that as he was leaving AP English, Oraton yelled at him, saying, “‘Frankly, I’m not impressed. I could have easily been admitted to all those schools if I tried… but I decided to focus on what’s more important: pursuing greatness right here at North Allegheny!’”
According to DeLoof, Oraton then flashed his NA t-shirt at DeLoof before proceeding to his Honors Chamber Orchestra class.
Naysayers are sometimes inevitable at North Allegheny, but DeLoof remains undeterred. When asked for advice about getting into college, he says that one shouldn’t limit their expectations.
“Although my name may be ‘fooled’ spelled backward, there is no limit to what you can do when you set your mind to it,” DeLoof said. “I’m certainly no fool about that.”
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Editors’ Note (as of 3pm, Apr 1): As the dateline indicates, this article was published on April Fools’ Day. The story described in this article is entirely fictitious and was intended merely as a joke.