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NATCHEZ — Natchez Early College senior Angelica King is among the 3 percent of Harvard College applicants to be accepted into the Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts for the fall semester.

King also received acceptance letters from the University of Chicago — a 5 percent acceptance rate — and Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana with a 14 percent acceptance rate, among others.

While King hasn’t fully decided on which university she’ll choose while waiting on notifications from scholarships she has applied for, she is pleased with her acceptance letters.

“Since I was a little kid, it was in the back of my mind that maybe I would apply to Harvard someday, so when it came time to send out applications, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to try,” she said. “Opening those acceptance letters was really exciting.”

With her ACT and SAT scores, standardized tests used for acceptance to most colleges and universities, King said she thought it might be possible to be accepted but was still shocked by the news.

“I didn’t really know if I would be able to get into those schools, but I was very excited when I opened the letters,” she said.

King scored higher than 93 percent of students nationwide on the SAT with a score of 1390. The SAT scores range from 400 to 1600 points. She also scored 33 on her ACT, where the highest score possible is 36.

She has been named the STAR Student for the 2024-2025 school year by the Mississippi Economic Council Student Teacher Achievement Recognition program.

Students are selected based on academic excellence determined by their ACT scores and scholastic averages in the classroom.

Each STAR Student is asked to designate a STAR Teacher, and King has chosen Lamar Briggs, her history, government and economics teacher at NEC.

“He has always been the sort of teacher that you can tell wants his students to succeed,” King said. “And honestly, we have a lot of teachers like that over here at Natchez Early College. Any one of them could have been my STAR teacher.”

King is on track to graduating with her high school diploma and an Associate’s Degree from Copiah Lincoln Community College, where her dual enrollment focus is biology with a pre-med concentration.

King plans to become a pediatric surgeon.

“I’ve always enjoyed working with little kids and I’ve also always been interested in the medical field. So, I feel like that combines both of those interests,” she said.

King is an active member of Christian Hope Baptist Church, where she has been involved with helping out in younger classes since she was 14 or 15 years old and singing in the church choir. King has also been active in her community as a member of the Mayor’s Youth Council and recently presented in the Pretty Girls With Brains Women’s Legacy Gala.

Her in-school involvement includes being president of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, a member of the Natchez-Adams School District choir, president of the Student Government Association and National Beta Club, and a member of the National Honor Society.

In her downtime, King said she enjoys reading, singing and spending time with her family.

She is the daughter of Myra King and Steven King.

When asked what her advice to her colleagues would be, King said, “Just always be true to yourself. … And just keep working hard no matter what. … You’ll have the most success if you just keep working hard.”