Daya Brown’s remarkable achievement of gaining admission to over 50 colleges, coupled with securing an impressive $1.3 million in scholarship funds, was not a stroke of luck but the culmination of meticulous planning and unwavering determination.
In a candid interview on Harvey Bracken-Smith’s “Personable” YouTube channel, Brown revealed that early in her high school years, she intentionally studied the trajectories of successful students before her.
“I saw what they were doing…they were the SGA president…the BSA presidents…the Beta Club presidents…in National Honor Society,” Brown recounted. She sought guidance and inquired, “‘How did you do it? I’m not trying to pay for college.'”
Seizing the opportunity presented by
the COVID-19 pandemic’s constraints, Brown immersed herself in extensive research and curated a list of schools that provided a major, minor, or certificate in the things she was interested in.Her diligence extended to exploring prestigious scholarships, from Coca-Cola to sorority and fraternity offerings.
She chose Duke University and began her freshman year in fall 2023.
“When I first visited Duke, I had this euphoric feeling — I was like, ‘Wow, I could see myself conquering a lot here,'” Brown said. “It was the only one that made sense.” With a keen understanding that she was a Black woman and the university’s competitive acceptance rate was around 7%, Brown strategized her path to admission.
Before embarking on the Common App process, Brown attended numerous college fairs, leveraging her impressive résumé and academic record to secure on-site admissions and scholarships. Additionally, she applied to several HBCUs through the Black Common App, winning academic scholarships from multiple institutions.
“It really wasn’t about the number of schools I applied to; it was really about making sure that I had options for my parents to really sit back and relax,” Brown explained to Good Morning America in April 2023, when she was a senior at Westlake High School in Atlanta at the time. “Student loans are something that I do not want. So this is kind of a gift, both to myself and to them.”
With aspirations to pursue visual media studies in college with a minor in journalism, Brown strategically pursued extracurricular activities aligned with her passions, including poetry, writing, and film production. “I think a lot of the time students don’t understand that you have to be more than just a student,” she said. The young scholar credited her success to the unwavering support of her “village”: her father, mother, grandmother, and brother.
Brown’s entrepreneurial spirit has manifested in the creation of her own production company, Elom & Co. Productions, dedicated to emerging creators. According to her interview with
Bracken-Smith, Brown’s accolades include becoming the youngest intern at Warner Studios when she was a teen, securing a coveted spot in a Harvard debating project, and launching the Scholar Social podcast.According to Brown’s LinkedIn, she looks forward to a summer internship with DirectTV’s content team. She recently became a branding strategy and business analytics extern at Beats by Dre.