With the college cheating scandal still making headlines, most of the stories in the news about college admissions are negative. That’s why it’s so nice to see a story go viral about a young man who beat the odds by getting accepted to seventeen colleges all by himself.

Dylan Chidick was only 7 years-old when he moved to the United States from Trinidad with his mother Khadine, and his younger twin brothers. The family fell on hard times a few years ago when Khadine lost her job, and to make matters worse, the twins suffer from aortic stenosis, which is a serious heart condition that causes narrowing in the heart valve.

As the medical bills piled up, Khadine stopped being able to afford her rent, and the family soon found themselves homeless. In 2017, the family spent two months living in homeless shelters before Khadine reached out to Village of Families, an agency that provide homes for neglected children. Thanks to this group, Dylan and his family were able to move into their new home in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Dylan was so inspired by the hard work of his single mother that he decided to put everything he had into becoming the first person in his family to go to college, where he hopes to major in political science and minor in history. Since he didn’t have the perfect grades or a high SAT score, Dylan knew the odds were against him, but he didn’t let this hold him back from trying.

He decided to work incredibly hard on his admissions essay, hoping that admissions officers would decide that they needed to have him at their school after reading it. This ended up paying off for Dylan more than he ever could have imagined, as he has since been admitted to 17 colleges!

Find out more about his amazing story in the video below!