Elsik High School student accepted by 7 Ivy League schools

HOUSTON – Out of the 830 students who will graduate from Elsik High School in a few weeks, there is one at the top. 

Senior Amina Mabizari is first in her class. 

People who know her say she has a smile that lights up the room and a brain perhaps even brighter, but that did not mean school was always easy for her.  

"When I was in kindergarten my mother had a teacher meeting where my teacher told her I had the lowest reading level in the class," Mabizari said. 

Her mother said she took that low reading level personally. 

Soon Mabizari was the most improved. That was the launch pad for her education.

"I have been accepted by 16 schools," she said. "Seven out of eight Ivy league schools. The eighth is Harvard where I was wait listed."

"It's huge,” said her former teacher, now adviser, Sabina Baig, said, "I'm not surprised. I think the student who never shows anger or frustration who is polite from the time she walks in until the time she leaves, she has set dreams and did not waver from what her dreams were.  If she did not succeed right away, she kept going."

Mabizari plans to attend Yale University and major in political science. 

She said she might pursue a double major and perhaps one day become president;  after all, she breaks barriers and perceptions.

"There is sorta this stigma around Alief that we're the 'ghetto' or we're 'the hood' and I always tell and I hope that my story inspires others to let them know that that could be the farthest from the truth, and you define yourself," she said.