‘Surreal’: Miami Beach High grad accepted to all eight Ivies. Credits speech & debate team

Attending an Ivy League college was always a dream for Ashley Adirika. So after a conversation with a friend who encouraged her to “shoot her shot,” she applied to all eight.

Then she was accepted to one, and then another. And then a third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh. And then, there was even one more.

Ashley received acceptance letters — and scholarships — to the top eight colleges and universities around the country, a rare feat. The chances of being accepted into one Ivy League university is about 3 to 8 percent.

“It was surreal,” Ashley, 17, told the Herald. “It felt amazing to know the work that I put into my educational journey was paying off and to see [colleges] recognize that.”

On Wednesday morning, Ashley and more than 400 other students and their families and friends streamed into the Watsco Center at the University of Miami for the Miami Beach Senior High School graduation ceremony.

For the students, it was the culmination of years of hard work, dedication and a passion to succeed. At the front of the room was Ashley, the student body president and who last week won the Miami Herald/el Nuevo Herald Silver Knight in Speech among Miami-Dade high school seniors.

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Before students’ names were read to receive their diploma, she addressed her peers, recounting events from freshman year, the lessons learned about tardiness and the experiences that shaped each of them into the individuals they are today and who they will become.

For Ashley, those experiences mark her success in speech and debate class and to founding Our Story Our Worth, an organization that works with female students of color to realize their potential through mentorship, sisterhood and community service.

And it was those accomplishments — plus her life experiences — that helped inform her decision to attend Harvard University next fall to study government. She received a full ride.

“We did it,” she told them with a big smile.

‘Hit it out of the park’

Ashley was introduced to speech and debate in eighth grade by Bess Rodriguez, the club’s coach at Carol City Middle School. Though she wasn’t her teacher at the time, Rodriguez knew Ashley was a star student and recruited her to join.

It was policy debate, which requires a strict format and sophisticated topics, such as criminal justice reform, Rodriguez told the Herald. But Ashley caught on right away.

“She didn’t know anything, but she just jumped right in,” Rodriguez said. “She was so tenacious and poised — an outgoing personality.”

Despite first-time nerves, Rodriguez said, Ashley “hit it out of the park,” impressing even tenured lawyers and debaters in the room.

At the time, Ashley didn’t live in Miami Beach, and still doesn’t today. Instead, she commutes from Miami Gardens, a nearly two-hour bus ride each way.

Nevertheless, she wanted to attend Miami Beach High, partially because her older siblings had attended and partially because she knew the school could offer additional opportunities she couldn’t access at her neighborhood school, including the “amazing speech and debate program.”

“In eighth grade, I fell in love with the ability to think about the world we live in and find targeted solutions to those issues,” Ashley said.

Four years ago, debate teams were mostly male students and mostly white, said Russell Rywell, Miami Beach High’s speech and debate coach. And while that’s changing, it “might have been daunting for her to set her sights on.”

But it was that love, coupled with her determination and hard work, he said, that’s enabled her to succeed.

In her freshman year, she came in second at the state championship. This spring, she and her partner were named to the two qualifying teams that will represent Miami-Dade in the national debate in Kentucky next week.

“She’s very firm in her beliefs and very good at expressing them,” Rywell said. Plus, she’s “very good at inspiring and training others.” On more than one occasion, he said, Ashley has stepped up to debate junior debaters, explaining to them why she was prioritizing an argument and what they could improve on.

Inspiring youth

From a young age, Ashley has been passionate about the empowerment of women and credits that drive to her upbringing in a household of independent women who worked to ensure everything was OK.

That’s especially true of her eldest sister, who in her senior year at Miami Beach High turned away a chance to attend Princeton University to become the guardian of her younger siblings, including Ashley.

Understanding her sister’s sacrifice and realizing the access, achievement and opportunity disparities that existed between Miami Beach High and Carol City Middle School, she founded Our Story Our Worth. The recognition that disparities exist and can be improved through policy also influenced her decision to pursue government at Harvard.

Through Our Story Our Worth, she and a few others partnered with middle school girls to help set goals and work on confidence building. At the start of the program, she said, many girls didn’t consider themselves fit for college or higher education. By the end, Ashley said proudly, “every single mentee saw themselves as a potential college student in the future. That was awesome for me to see.”

The organization also focuses on sisterhood to create spaces where women and girls can thrive. Growing up, Ashley and her family often experienced instability. But even in challenging times, when her family had to rely on the support of others, her older siblings instilled in her an urgency to give back to the community.

“Being able to be in the position I am now and having the opportunity to pay it forward is something that is really important to me,” she said.

Life’s best moments

For Tracy Adirika, Ashley’s eldest sibling, watching her younger sister graduate and excel in her education is a “full circle moment.” Adirika, who declined Princeton to raise her siblings, later attended Miami Dade College before transferring to the University of Florida online to remain in Miami full time.

“She just displayed this drive and determination and motivation to achieve well beyond her dreams,” Adirika said of her younger sister. “Seeing her mold into this beautiful young woman, I can’t express enough how proud of her I am. It’s been a great joy to watch her grow [and] to know I had a hand in raising her.”

Adirika was unable to attend Ashley’s graduation Wednesday, but she was there when she opened her acceptance letters to all eight Ivy Leagues.

“Being there to support her and witness that day was one of the best moments of my life,” she said.

As she moves to Cambridge, Ashley said she’s most excited to learn about the world around her and her place in it. And if there’s anything she wants others to know, it’s that she hopes they will use their experiences for the better.

“I don’t want to be defined by any of my struggles,” she said. “I want to use those experiences to create an impact.”