A Hartford student has been accepted into six Ivy league schools and Stanford University, after her friends told her she didn't have a good chance.
Shay Pezzulo is like most other seniors in her Classical Magnet School class: excited to graduate.
Only difference is, she has a 4.75 GPA.
Choosing between seven acceptance letters from top tier universities, including, Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth and Stanford.
“Honestly when I was reading them, I couldn’t breathe! I was so excited and I was in such disbelief, as well!”
Born in China, Pezzulo was adopted as a baby and grew up in Burlington.
"I applied with the idea that I would get maybe one if I was lucky," she told NBC Connecticut.
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Someday she hopes to be a doctor.
Shay’s principal couldn’t be more proud.
“I have never supervised, be part of, supported a student who has had so many acceptances to Ivy league schools,” Principal Zandralynn Gordon said. “I am really overjoyed and what is more important to me is how modest Shay is in spite of her great achievements.”
As Shay tries to figure out what her decision will be May 1, she has a message to other students.
“A lot of my friends from other schools they would tell me, ‘Shay, I love you and everything, but just because you don’t take AP classes and everything you don’t really have a good chance at these schools I’m just going to be honest here,’” she said.
“But I think having that mentality wasn’t the best because looking back and looking where I’ve come now, I think it’s evident no matter what your education is, as long as you make the most of it and you really adapt to your environment and work as hard as you can I think that you can really do what you want to do.”
