A 17 year old Muslim girl made headlines in the United States for being accepted into all eight Ivy League universities. Smart, bright, confident, Munira Khalif has the honor of choosing among 8 of the most highly competitive and prestigious universities in the US.
It is truly an amazing accomplishment to receive letters of acceptance from 8 of the top universities in the world. In total, she applied to 11 universities and she was accepted into each of them: Brown University, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Yale, Brown, Stanford, Georgetown, and the University of Minnesota.
To most of us, it sounds baffling that one girl has been offered admission into 11 of the best universities, but those who know Khalif are not surprised. Teachers at her high school, Mounds Park Academy, in Maplewood, Minnesota, said that Khalif took as many rigorous high school courses as possible. School officials say she has a stellar academic record.
Report cards and high scores on testing are not the only factors that made Khalif such an attractive candidate for the universities. She is brilliant in class and out.
While kids her age are just hanging out and still undecided about what to do with their lives, Khalif has already founded a non-profit organization, called Lighting the Way. This organization aims to make education accessible for East African youth, especially girls.
So far, her organizations has already raised over $30,000 to build libraries, solve sanitation problems, and provide scholarships to make sure that young girls can get into school and stay there.
“There's a proverb that says when you educate a boy, you educate an individual, but when you educate a girl, you educate a generation,” Khalif said.
Khalif founded a Social Consciousness Club at her school; which provides a platform for students to discuss domestic and international issues, such as hunger in America, poverty, and other important issues.
As a teen adviser for the United Nation's Girl Up campaign, she mobilized young people in her community to send letters to Congress in support of legislation fighting against child marriage. Khalif is also a state speech champion, and one of nine recipients from around the world who received the UN Special Envoy for Global Education's Youth Courage Award.
The daughter of Somalian immigrants who fled to American in the year 1992 due to the civil war in their country, Khalif said she credits her success to her God, her community, school, and her family who values education.
“Having parents who fled from civil war changes your entire perspective. That makes you realize the opportunities you have in the United States and use those to its fullest extent,” said Khalif.
“When I was growing up, my mom told me her own story of growing up in Somalia. My grandfather was a very revolutionary man in that he not only wanted to educate his sons, but also his daughters. My mom got that opportunity and passed that opportunity on to me. It put me in a position where I thought I had to give back,” she added.
