Mercer Island High School senior Hy A. Cheever was devastated to learn last week that his applications to all eight Ivy League colleges were denied.
While Cheever, who serves this year as the president of the Association of MIHS Student Organization Presidents, has a 4.0 GPA and scored a perfect 1600 on the SAT, it was his choice of extracurricular research project that proved to be his undoing. While his pioneering work into the causes of prostate cancer has received accolades from experts at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Ivy League admissions officers proved to be a tougher sell.
“Prostate cancer, that’s so 2011. I mean, It’s rarely even fatal,” said Dartmouth associate dean of admissions Nadia N. Evers. “If he had cured one of the trendy cancers, like bile duct, we might have given his application a second reading.”
Cheever’s mother, Oprah A. Cheever, shared in her son’s disappointment: “I can understand him not getting into any of the good Ivies, but he didn’t even get into one of the safety Ivies, like Brown or Princeton.”
Cheever could not be reached for comment by Distorter staff. Friends say that he is planning to take a gap year at his family’s beachfront condo in Cabo before matriculating as a member of the Stanford University Class of 2022.