Congrats to my class of 2017!

I once again had the honor and pleasure with working closely with a small number of amazing young people through the exploration of self and articulation of values and goals that is also known as the college application process. An amazing group in a great many ways.

Here is the full list of acceptances (and published barely in time before they actually head off to school!):
Arizona St. University
Beloit College
Bentley University
Biola University
Boston University
Bucknell University
Brandeis University
California Polytechnic Institute, San Luis Obispo
California State University, Fullerton
California State University, Long Beach
Carleton College
Chapman University
Denison University
Duke University
Emerson University
Imperial College London
King’s College
Knox College
Lawrence University
Loyola Marymount University
Macalester College
McGill University
Mt. Holyoke College
New York University
Northeastern University
Occidental College
Pepperdine University
Purdue University
Queen’s College
Reed College
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rose Hulman Institute of Technology
Santa Clara University
Seattle University
Southern Methodist University
St. Andrew’s University
Stanford University
University College London
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Davis
University of California, Irvine
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Merced
University of California, Riverside
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Cruz
University of Chicago
University of Connecticut, Storrs
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
University of Puget Sound
University of Rochester
University of San Diego
University of San Francisco
University of the Pacific (PharmD program)
University of Toronto
University of Washington, Seattle
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Virginia Tech
Western University
Yale University

Going Outside

by Matthew

My first day of college: They were lying on the ground under a blanket of clear cellophane, clad in only beige underwear, smeared blood, and tangible commitment to their movement against animal cruelty. Coming from a very beige hometown of cookie-cutter neighborhoods, music schools, and test prep services, I’d never seen anything like this.

This, I supposed, was UC Berkeley. This was the Bay Area, the heart of social activism, of technological innovation, and of what appeared to be the majority of the world’s squirrel population (for this reason, I wholeheartedly believe that we should steal Haverford’s mascot and be the Cal Squirrels).

Over the course of the year, I would see my fellow students cheer and boo electoral college results in the dining hall and hear of the marches through the streets and the violence in the community. I walked past a hand-holding protest around Lake Merritt in Oakland on the way to a David Sedaris book reading. Like an idiot, I slept through the Women’s March. After a wind ensemble rehearsal, I steered away from the protests against Milo Yiannopoulos when I heard loud booms and saw policemen in full riot gear, opting to follow it via live stream.

As a fairly reserved human being, I tend to avoid rowdy crowds, riot gear, and any potential danger. I like my fire inside of a fireplace, pizza oven, or television screen (don’t we all?), and I don’t think pedestrians should be interrupting the flow of freeway traffic. But, so I’ve heard, social activism is part of the Berkeley experience.

So on Thursday, I went to a protest.

Covering the event for my journalism class, I sat in for an activist group’s pre-protest briefing. It was the same group that had staged the on-campus demonstration with the bloody cellophane people at the beginning of the year. This time they were going to a supermarket. During the meeting, a blanket of focused silence covered the group. A static-y blanket charged with unspoken intensity and energy. Rather exciting!

The power of a well-coordinated call-and-response chant is more powerful than you’d think, since everyone actually knows the words and speaks together as a single, disembodied voice. None of that mumbled destructive interference at high school rallies and football games. It’s unexpectedly loud and effective.

Shoppers looked on with half-filled baskets, and spectators gathered around the front of the supermarket with their smartphones.

Handing out flyers and making themselves heard, the activists snaked through the supermarket in a single-file line. Back home, I’d seen picket lines outside of an Albertsons. But nothing to this extent or level of coordination. I was impressed.

And I suppose this is what it takes to be heard in Berkeley. Never in a million years would I have seen something like this back at home.

And that’s the thing in college. You see new things. You hear and learn new things. College isn’t just bookwork; it’s also about learning from the community, the people around you. So go outside once in a while. Do stuff.

Congrats to My Class of 2016!

WOW! It’s been a year with too few writings from me. I’ll aim to change that over the weeks and months ahead. There’s especially a lot on my mind following a conference that I attended in Boston last week.

For now, though, it’s that time of year where I need to congratulate my graduating seniors (who as of now are completing their final high school examinations ever!) on the work they’ve done and the trajectories they have ahead of them. It’s been an honor and pleasure to work with you all!

Acceptances include:
Beloit College
Boston College
Boston University
College of Wooster
Columbia University
Cornell University
DePaul University
Duke University
Emory University
Franklin & Marshall College
Indiana University, Bloomington
Johns Hopkins University
Lawrence University
Loyola Marymount University
Macalester College
Michigan State University
New York University
Northwestern University
Oberlin College
Occidental College
Pennsylvania State University, University Park
Pepperdine University
Pomona College
Rice University
Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Scripps College
Smith College
Syracuse University
University of British Columbia
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Davis
University of California, Irvine
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Merced
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Cruz
University of Connecticut, Storrs
University of Michigan
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
University of Notre Dame
University of Rochester
University of Southern California
University of Washington, Seattle
Vanderbilt University
Vassar College
Wesleyan University

Best wishes for your journey ahead!

Yell at Me if I’m Walking into Something

By Kevin

Yell at Me if I’m Walking into Something

Seeking refuge from the humid North Carolinian summer furnace under shade cast by the abundant Magnolia trees dotting South Campus, I tell a pack of SAT-prepping juniors and application-bound seniors that they should apply to my university for its unique blend of liberal arts curriculum and ACC athletics. Pointing to the nearby pole topped with a non-stop blue flickering light and encasing a small metallic speaker system labelled “Call Box,” I explain to their parents that I’ve never felt unsafe on this campus. I glance around the wide-eyed faces of their sons and daughters, offering, with half-feigned excitement, that our main library houses 1.8 million volumes. I tell them that 58% of the undergraduate students who populate our campus will earn credit for some form of faculty-advised research. For every one of us students, there are eleven faculty. For every ten of us, six and a quarter will study abroad for at least one semester. One backward step at a time, I continue the tour, body facing the group in front, pleading that they yell at me if I’m walking into something. Without fail, a few people from each tour group thankfully always yell out that I’m half-a-step from hitting a tree or a sidewalk curb. At the end of my tours, I try to repay them for their generosity by telling them that they, too, are probably walking into something they can’t see.

In high school, I had this notion of what college would be like. I would argue that everyone does. Some of what I imagined proved true, and others, not so much. College embodies the prime time of young lives, the epitome of those horrible, yet salvageable, decisions that we futilely promise ourselves we’ll never make again. Dorm life is portrayed through stories of big brothers and older friends and Project X and Bad Neighbors to be filled with relentless joy and replete with amazing people around us at all times. I imagined everyone else reveling in this idyllic fantasy of college life insofar as it didn’t make sense to me, freshman year, why I wasn’t having a great time myself. I wasn’t necessarily having a bad time; it was just that I assumed everyone else was experiencing the time of their lives. Thinking that almost everyone around me was having a ball, at my university as well as others, made me feel inexplicably worse. Fast forward a couple years, and it’s pretty clear that not everyone enjoys college the same way, especially freshman year.

Since I would come back from every tour with scraped knees and a heavy embarrassment without those one or two students and parents yelling out that I’m running into something, telling them that they shouldn’t feel pressured to enjoy college is my way of repaying them. Aside from all the statistics I’ve memorized and handicap-accessible routes I’ve been accustomed to taking this summer, I hope that explaining my experiences to my tour groups relieves some of the pressure hinging on finding that famed ecstasy of collegiate life. College is pretty ridiculous and insanely eye-opening, but it takes time to find your niche regardless of where you go to school. Eventually, almost everyone finds people who point out those potholes and sidewalk curbs that we’re all about to stumble on.

First Year Reflections from a UChicago Student

by Joseph

First Year Reflections from a UChicago Student

I’d like to share my reflections and how I grew as a person in my first year at college, but I feel that I was initially going about it all wrong. I found it very tempting to draw wisdom from my experiences and to make blanket statements about the nature of people, about myself, and about knowledge. What makes someone intelligent or successful? I originally wanted to describe the people I met and why a single shared character trait could explain their intelligence or success, but I found evidence to complicate my original conclusion. Here, at college, there are a variety of people from different socio-economic backgrounds, with different motivations, and with different intellect. I would like to believe that what brought us all to this college was some form of intelligence or character trait or creative way of thinking, but I’d be lying to myself. For that matter, I couldn’t make any blanket statements about myself as a person either. At college, I found myself taking intellectual risks I would not have thought of taking before coming here, befriending people I thought I would never interact with, and studying subjects I thought would never capture my interest. After a considerable period of reflection I realized that the conventional nature of wisdom found in short, witty statements is just an oversimplification of complex humanity. The small suburbs I grew up in now felt much smaller and I found myself facing an entirely new world that I knew so little about. I feel that I’ve learned more about people, myself, and the world in a single year of college than I had previously in all my life. But after much reflection, I realized that I could not possibly stop learning, growing, and changing at college, and that my real life where I could truly and intently reflect upon has barely begun.

Congrats to My Class of 2015!

I’m a bit overdue here, as I’ve known this info since May, but it’s important that I honor the accomplishments of the students I supported this year.

It was a pleasure to work with you all!

Acceptances include:
Bard College
Barnard College
Brown University
Bryn Mawr College
California Institute of the Arts
Case Western Reserve University
Clark University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Drew University
Indiana University, Bloomington
Iowa State University
Lawrence University (the conservatory)
Macalester College
Miami University, Ohio
Oberlin College
Princeton University
Purdue University
Rhode Island School of Design
Santa Clara University
Smith College
St. Olaf College
Stanford University
University of British Columbia
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Davis
University of California, Irvine
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Riverside
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Cruz
University of La Verne
University of Pennsylvania
University of Puget Sound
University of San Diego
University of Southern California (the Dr. Dre program :D)
University of Toronto