Eagan High School senior Tram Nguyen’s name has been associated with Harvard since middle school, but it finally hit this week when she got accepted.

Nguyen says she was shocked by this, and never expected it to happen. She was spending her March 28th, or “Ivy League Day,” with friends at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, when her dad texted her to remind her of the college decisions coming in. “I checked Dartmouth first, and I got waitlisted there, so I was pretty disappointed. I went to the Harvard website and was totally expecting to not get it, so as soon as I saw ‘Congratulations,’ I was shocked. I screamed ‘Oh my god, I got into Harvard,’” Nguyen recalls. She and her friends were at Noodles and Company for lunch when she saw this, and everyone stood up and clapped for her at the announcement.

With the multitude of Nguyen’s achievements, it’s no surprise that she has received profuse amounts of support. Nguyen notes, “It’s so amazing, I’ve received such an overwhelming amount of support from my peers, teachers, and just people I don’t even know. I’ve even gotten DM’s [on Instagram] congratulating me and asking me how I got in.”

Harvard’s acceptance rate is 5.4%, their average accepted ACT score is 35, and they highly encourage applicants to take the SAT. When Nguyen scored a 28 on the ACT, and didn’t take the SAT, it greatly lowered her chances of getting in. “The odds were all against me and somehow I got in,” she explains.

It seems that everyone at Eagan is over the moon for Nguyen and her outstanding accomplishments, and her PAWS teacher, Mr. Haight, is no exception. “Tram clearly works very hard, harder than many students, and she is very involved,” he notes. He adds onto this, saying, “You can see how much effort she puts into everything she does.”

Many people dream of getting into an Ivy League school, and Nguyen has some advice for those people: it’s all about hard work and connections. “I think most of the interview is making sure you form a connection with the interviewer; tell your story,” she notes. It’s clear as day how hard Nguyen has worked for her outstanding accomplishments. She undoubtedly deserves this, and that is something everyone can agree on.