‘I Felt Like I Should Choose the Scarier Option’: Williams Commits to Harvard

By Kayla Lemens, Editor in Chief

Alexis Williams and her friends couldn’t help it. Despite being in a restaurant, they all started screaming.

That’s what happens when you find out you’ve been accepted into an Ivy League school.

Alexis, known to her friends as Lexi, recently committed to Harvard University, becoming one of just a handful of students from the West Bend High Schools to attend that school. The last one was Emmanuel Garrison Hooks, who graduated in 2016.

Williams, a valedictorian at West High School, applied to Harvard with a hope to study genetics, but is unable to declare a major until her sophomore year. 

Williams applied to a multitude of universities including St. Cloud State, Winona State, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Washington University, Yale, Northwestern and Harvard.

Once hearing back from her schools, she narrowed down her options to Northwestern and Harvard.

“I really liked both the schools,” Williams said. “But Harvard scares me more, and I felt like I should choose the scarier option.”

Over the past four years, Lexi has been very involved at WBHS. She has played basketball and ran track for all four years, and picked up tennis her senior year. She also participated in the flag football powder puff games.

Not only has Williams participated in athletics, but she is also the president of West National Honor Society. She is also a participant in student council, black student council, and CREW, a new organization that helps incoming ninth graders transition into high school.

She also volunteers frequently as a mentor at Silverbrook Middle School and volunteers at McLane Elementary, where her mom works. 

In 2016, Harvard had an overall acceptance rate of 5.9 percent. That set a new record low, but since then, the acceptance rate has only dropped.

This year there was a record-low of 4.59 percent and this admissions cycle has been deemed the most competitive in Harvard history. This is the first time in history that the university had an acceptance rate below five percent.

Since getting accepted, Williams has toured Harvard and spent some time in Massachusetts.

“Overall, I’m really excited to move,” Williams said. “Everything is so different, but exciting.”

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(Top image courtesy of Alexis Williams.)