Beaverton Student Accepted to Seven Ivy League Schools

BEAVERTON, OR – Westview High School senior Bryan Lee was at a Key Club convention in downtown Portland when his phone started buzzing with notifications. One email after another, seven in total, lit up Lee’s screen in urgent succession –– each offering him congratulations.

When the vibrating stopped, Lee saw he’d been accepted to seven of eight Ivy League schools.

“I was in utter disbelief,” Lee told Patch Wednesday. “I immediately called my mom.”

Sherry Li, Bryan’s mother, was driving when she got the call, she said.

“(Bryan) told me, ‘I got into Harvard and Yale,’ and I couldn’t believe it,” Li said. “It’s unbelievable. Unreal. In 100 dreams, I couldn’t have predicted it.”

Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, and the University of Pennsylvania each offered Lee an opportunity to enroll –– now the 18-year-old just needs to pick one.

“They’re all really great opportunities,” Lee said, noting his initial hope had been to receive at least one letter from either Harvard, Princeton, or Yale, never expecting to get accepted to seven at once. “People are joking I should have applied to Dartmouth to see if I could have gotten all eight, but I don’t regret not applying. I was already able to get more than I could have dreamed of.”

Lee wants to study both Computer Science and Business, he said, with the hopes of bringing his earned degrees back to the west coast after graduation.

“I want to make a meaningful impact in the community,” he said. “Computer Science will give me the technical background to create something, and the Business background will hopefully help me implement it … (but) I definitely plan on coming back to the West Coast.”

No stranger to multitasking, Lee participated in several extracurricular clubs during his time at Westview. Along with the Key Club he also was part of Science and Debate clubs, among others.

"This is an unbelievable accomplishment for Bryan and his family and we are so very excited and happy for them," Westview Principal Jon Franco told Patch in an email. "Bryan's accomplishments thus far are a testament to his intelligence, but more importantly they are a testament to his propensity to work extremely hard.

"Bryan is active in the Westview Community with community service and has assumed many leadership roles which will serve him well in whatever he decides to do. The scary thing is, he is not even close to reaching his potential."

Lee's mother agrees.

“He’s very responsible and hard working,” Li said, adding that she believes her son will be successful at whichever university he chooses to attend. “I want him to be happy, learn from his peers, and do some good things.”

According to Lee, that’s been the message from his parents all along.

“My parents grew up in China and came to the U.S. to provide better opportunities for me and my sisters,” he said, adding that they’ve been an important part of this experience. “People see I work hard, so I think they were happy it paid off.”

Now Lee hopes his success doesn’t mean pressure is put on anyone else in his immediate circle of family and friends –– particularly his two sisters, one of whom is a freshman at Sunset High School.

“Don’t define your journey by what other people have done,” Lee said. “That could delude what you want to achieve in the future.”

Editor's Note: Lee said he would let Patch know which school he's decided on when that decision is made.

Photo Courtesy: Sherry Li