High School Senior Accepted to UCLA After Twitter Campaign
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SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images(BROOKLINE, Mass.) — Some may say it’s a sign of the times. When Bernie Zak, a senior from Brookline High School in Brookline, Mass., found out he had been wait-listed at the college of his dreams, he wasn’t about to wait until June for a final decision.
Zak did what so many do these days — he took to Twitter and launched a campaign called #AcceptBernieUCLA. Using that hashtag, Zak, whose Twitter handle is @berniezak, started a countdown of sorts, tweeting reasons why the University of California, Los Angeles, should accept him.
Take this one: “Reason #34 @UCLA should accept @berniezak: he looks like @DavidHasselhoff when he runs down Santa Monica beach,” he tweeted.
Or this one: “Reason #42 @UCLA should accept @berniezak: after taking every AP history [course], he is a note taking master #AcceptBernieUCLA.”
“I didn’t want to just wait. I wanted to do something,” Zak told Boston.com about his Twitter campaign.
And it turns out, he didn’t have to.
Zak’s game plan was to post 50 reasons why the school should accept him, but after 18 tweets he got a letter from UCLA stating that his admission status had been updated. Zak learned he had been accepted to the university.
UCLA said Twitter did not influence its admission decisions. In a statement to ABC News, UCLA said that “a Twitter campaign by any student would have absolutely no influence on our admissions decisions.”
But the 18-year-old said the social media site might have helped him stand out enough to score a coveted spot, according to Boston.com.
What Zak did next should come as no surprise. Once again, he took to Twitter, tweeting his excitement: “Thank all of you so much! Officially a @UCLA Bruin class of 2017.”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio