Kwasi Enin, 17, was recently accepted to all eight Ivy League schools, and the New York Post obtained the college essay that helped get him in.
In the essay, Enin writes about his love of music and how it has been, and will continue to be, an important part of his life.
"My haven for solace in and away from home is in the world of composers, harmonies and possibilities," Enin wrote. "My musical haven has shaped my character and without it, my life would not be half as wonderful as it is today."
The personal memoir is embellished and borderline cheesy, like most college essays, as New York Magazine highlights.
"It is very much a college essay - flowery language, Big Ideas, lessons learned - but it also worked," the magazine wrote.
eHow's David Roos argues that college expectations of incoming freshman are too demanding. Ivy League schools reject 84.85 percent of applications, and for Harvard it's even more -- 93.28 percent.
"The increasing selectivity of the Ivy League admissions process only exacerbates the problem, creating hordes of Ivy-obsessed students who place unhealthy pressure on themselves to be accepted," Roos wrote on eHow.
PolicyMic also notes that in 2008, both Stanford and Princeton rejected Sam Werner of Norwalk, Conn., despite perfect SAT scores, membership on two sports teams and ranking third in his class.
The application process is not only grueling, but stressful. A Princeton-led study from 2012 showed that 71 percent of students gauged their stress levels during the process as "high" or "very high," up 15 percent from 2003.
The biggest worry is that students "will get into [their] first-choice college, but won't have sufficient funds to attend," study researchers said in a statement.
