Congratulations are in order for Nick, Nigel, Zachary, and Aaron Wade.
Last month when the Wade brothers, fraternal quadruplets from Ohio, were all accepted at Harvard University, Yale, Duke, Stanford, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins and Cornell, social media lit up a storm and their story went viral.
Now, they’ve officially made their choice: Yale, according to NBC News.
“Yale offered all four brothers from Liberty Township, Ohio, an “extraordinary” financial aid package, which no other college could beat,” the report says.
It was an easy decision for 18-year-old Nick, Zach and Nigel Wade. “The school treated us like family,” said Nigel the night before Deadline Day.
By attending the same school, their parents won’t have to go cross-country to attend four different college graduations.
“Yale won,” said their father, Darrin Wade, a senior staff software architect for General Electric, who was rooting for the Connecticut Ivy all along. “They made the best offer, and it was the benchmark for my sons.”
“But it was tough mentally,” Wade, 51, told NBC. “I am glad this day is over with.”
Their mother, Kim Wade, a 52-year-old junior high school principal, gave birth to the quads on Jan. 8, 1999 after undergoing fertility treatments. The boys were born two minutes apart and two months premature. Since then, her and her husband have been raising the four with a combination of love, tough love and old school discipline.
When asked what their secret was to raising such successful sons, Darrin simply said: “Lots of push-ups and sit-ups and running. Discipline and structure. It’s my job as a father to be there, to reassure them. Not to coddle them.”
With all this attention surrounding the boys getting accepted into all the Ivy Leagues, you would think that the parents had something to do with it. But you’d think wrong.
Their parents had no idea the foursome had applied to the Ivy League. “We didn’t have the resources for places like that,” said Darrin Wade.
“They honestly would not let my wife and myself know what they wanted to do,” he said. “We have more or less tried to stay out of it.”
Two of the young men had applied to 20 schools and two applied to 12. Of course, they did get some rejections, except for Nick, who got in everywhere he applied.
But that didn’t matter at all to any of the other brothers, explained brother Nigel, “We are more collaborative than competitive.”
Aaron wants to study artificial intelligence and plays piano and sings. Nigel will study neuroscience and has plans to be a doctor. Zach is thinking of studying chemical engineering and is a discus star. Nick wants to be a diplomat and studied Arabic in Morocco.
The decision wasn’t all about money. “It was other pieces, like the softer stuff,” said father Wade. “They wanted to make sure they felt comfortable.”
“I am a hard-ass,” he said. “But I want them to feel they have a support system to keep them safe.”
Even though the other colleges made generous offers, father Wade said Yale was “the best decision all around.”
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