In Their Own Words

It was a big task to take on,” said Oliver Pechenik ’06, in classic understatement. The college admission process, as Sasha Kamenetska ’06 told us, is inseparable from the senior year: the experience is one and the same. The college office views transitioning to college as a valuable part of a Milton education, a reflective and developmentally rich process.

How do students experience it? Was it a time for “personal reflection, independent reasoning and informed decision-making,” as the college office hopes?

How and when did this year’s graduates step into the much-chronicled journey? What tale do they tell about their approach, their discoveries, their effort to describe and differentiate themselves? How resilient were they? How resourceful?

Rod Skinner, director of college counseling, has written, “Our job is to guide, counsel, probe, recommend, refer, suggest, and inform. We do not decide, require, command or package.”

Despite the hovering sense that, ultimately, the “college thing” will kick in, most students are happy to wait until the annual February parents’ weekend for Class II families as the official launch. There, college counselors wisely lay out the ground rules, timelines and expectations. From that point forward, the students direct their searches.

This journey belongs to each student, and you may hear in their words what today’s well-prepared Milton boy or girl undertakes in his or her 17th or 18th year.


Part I: Making the List

Luis Iraheta
When I was faced by the process, I was called up short, no way around it. The folder the college office gave us was scary and intimidating. This is not something you can do in one weekend. I came here from a very close family in Houston [Luis attended KIPP Academy, a Houston charter school]. So when I started the college process I wasn’t sure I wanted the Northeast; I wanted something in Texas. My main objective was to return home, so I applied to Rice early action. I got in, but Ms. Klein (college counselor) advised me to apply to some Northeast schools, because I might change my mind. So I applied to Columbia. Eventually I did change my mind, and I’m going to Columbia. I realized that I’ve changed a lot, and many of those changes came from being at Milton. I’m more independent. If I go back close to home, maybe I wouldn’t be as focused on doing well. Being here helped me become my own person, to feel more comfortable about myself overall. I’ve matured. When I came here, I was attached to my family and I came because it was a good opportunity. Now I have my own set of goals, and my own destiny, and I want to accomplish something. Next year will bring another set of challenges—but Milton’s prepared me well. I hope I can deal with the obstacles that come my way.

Seohyung Kim
I’ve loved science and math as long as I can remember. I do love history and English, too, but I really understand math. So my direction was clear, but so many schools had good programs. I asked myself, ‘Is math and science really all that I want?’ How much does music mean, for instance? I asked myself what I wanted to come out as, after college. I want to come out crying for more—not overworked or overstressed.

I found it hard to weigh options and choices. I had no sense of whether the way I thought about a place was actually a good way to make a decision. I was pretty sure I’d have to visit classes. I knew schools would all sound the same, through the Web sites and tours, so I contacted friends and they often changed my perspective. Then I tried to visit without letting the college tell me what they were about. Why shouldn’t I just sit in class and talk to a professor, rather than talk with an admission officer?

I spent the last year taking math classes at the Harvard Extension School, and I knew I didn’t want Harvard. U Chicago, Stanford, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, Harvey Mudd [one of the Claremont Colleges] and MIT all have great math programs. I ruled out California; after all, I’d already made one big move, from Korea to here. Then I visited MIT, and I really liked the atmosphere. They were, sort of ‘You’re interested in this? Then go crazy with it.’ I’m not into the Ivy League, and MIT has more indie spirit; it’s less predictable.

Taylor Esformes
Rather than us being successfully introspective, it’s that the counselors know us really, really well. Ms. Jones makes you want to think and want to talk.

The first time I thought about college was the first meeting that I had to go to about it: parents’ weekend. My mom took eight pages of notes. Listening to the admission officers I was half-worried, half-skeptical. All the essay examples were so unique that I thought, ‘There have to be the other 80 percent of the people.’ But I don’t ever worry about things: I’m sometimes too flippant, but I never worry.

The process did make me think about my future, though. I always thought I wanted to go into law or politics. I worked for Senator Leiberman last summer, and I’ll always be active in politics. But I realized that I don’t want to go into a job where either some people will hate me, no matter what, or where I’ll have to change my opinion based on polls—a job where I might have to lie.

Now I want to be a theoretical physicist and minor in chemistry. This year I took Cosmology and Modern Physics, and I haven’t felt this excited since I was about 12. This course and Mr. Kernohan turned me on. I’m going to WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute) with a full scholarship, probably because of my interest in quantum physics; they’re trying to build the department. When I’m there, in 2007, I’m going to have a huge party when the particle accelerator, the large Hadron linear collider, comes online. I can’t wait.

Michelle Torski
From boarding school I wanted strong academics, a place that would help me develop as a student, and through the experience I’ve learned a lot about myself. I love the people here, the diversity. Everyone is his or her own person. Everyone is important for his or her own set of skills. So colleges I would consider had to have diversity—of thought, of personality, of background. What I did outside of class at Milton also tells a lot about what’s important to me, too: I did costuming for theatre, Christian Fellowship, Gender Equity, Knitting Club and I was a head of Community Service.

I go to an Orthodox Christian church in Boston every Sunday, teach Sunday school there, and work with a youth group. I really depended on the college office to help me learn about schools that might be a good match. I liked Georgetown; it’s a faith-based school in the middle of a large, diverse city with an Orthodox church nearby. So I applied to Georgetown early action, along with some other schools, and got in. Wake Forest offered me a large scholarship for costuming and academics. I got into Duke, but I’m considering being a math major, and Duke’s return visit program presented the math team, but there were no girls on it. In the beginning of senior fall, I never would have considered Georgetown, but I approached my college list with an open mind, and in this process you sort out your values and what’s important to you.

Joya Jones
I did SYA (School Year Abroad) in Rennes, France, and there I learned how to live. In the United States everything leads to competition, to college. I would be furiously writing papers, concerned about grades, and my French family showed me how to take the stress off. Just ‘do what you have time for,’ they would say. I came back senior fall and had to catch up with where everyone else was. I thought I loved Stanford and didn’t like the Ivies, but then I did a more solid assessment of schools, based on where I might want to live and what I didn’t want in a college. I ended up with a list that included four Ivies based on opportunities to do everything—I like to do a lot of things. Environment is important to me: I want serious academics, but a laid-back, relaxed atmosphere without cutthroat competition, a place that wasn’t about trampling over others for success.

I didn’t want, and don’t like, the whole early application thing, because you change so much in senior year, even in a couple of months.

Henry White
My mother and my father [separately] organized visits to about 20 schools before school started. I thought it was a miserable waste of time, but afterward I appreciated it. It gave me a wide range of schools to look at—none of which I ended up applying to; it gave me an edge on visiting—how to approach tours, interviews, what questions to ask; and it let me know what

I was interested in. I determined that what I wanted was a school with a friendly, open community and some green space; and I wanted intellectual rigor. Close by or far away was not an issue. Reed describes itself as full of ‘quirky intellectuals.’ That’s how the school sells itself. I visited campus and was astounded at the feeling in my entire body that was YES.


The Game Athletes Must Play

Scholar-athletes, particularly those with serious interests outside of their respective sports, or significant financial need, deal with yet another layer of confusing complexity. Coaches can begin communicating directly with students during their junior year—by phone or email. During senior fall that communication intensifies. The student-athlete has a number of decisions to make and issues to balance: What’s the right division for my level of play? Besides athletics, what do I want out of college? How important are my other extracurricular interests? Should I risk putting all my eggs in one basket and if I get in, will the college give me the funding I need?

Mike Fitoussi
Division I is one thing; the Ivies are another, and the NESCAC schools are a third [New England Small College Athletic Conference—schools such as Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Amherst, or Tufts]. Up until junior year the coaches are interested basically in generic information—your height, your weight, your hometown. Then once direct contact is permitted, they’re really interested in getting to know you.

At the beginning of senior year they invite you to visit their school. I was interested mostly in the NESCAC schools. Coaches will say ‘I’ll give you my full support,’ and ‘It looks fine,’ but there’s no guarantee. Your job is to get in to the school first, and then the coach will help you get the financial aid you need. I had to decide whether to use ED1 [Early Decision 1] and, if I didn’t hear soon enough about Tufts, to use ED2 [Early Decision 2] for another school. I had to apply to eight or nine other schools, because Tufts wasn’t guaranteed at all, but other schools wanted an indication of interest before they’d push for me. So I could have been in a spot where I got in somewhere just because of academics, but I wouldn’t end up being able to play hockey much at all. (Coaches have to balance a certain number of terrific players who have lower SATs, whom they really expect to play, with simply good players who have higher SATs, so that all players that are admitted hit a certain average SAT level.) It was a stressful time, with things changing day to day and communication from me, Coach Cannata [Milton’s hockey coach], and Mr. Skinner in the college office.

I came to Milton and repeated my junior year here; Milton changes your motivation. I never had any association with my former school, but at Milton, you get used to having relationships with your teachers in multiple roles. After Milton, I wanted a school with good academics and people interested in ideas, along with hockey and other sports.

Ema Blumhagen
I learned to climb before I could walk. I’m physically oriented and I like physical challenges. Before I came to Milton, I had been playing ice hockey with boys for 10 years—since I was five years old. I came to play women’s hockey, to get great academics, and to open up new possibilities for my future.

The thing is, I’d be happy almost anywhere. There are good women’s ice hockey programs in so many schools; the list is too long to narrow down. So my process pretty much revolved around talking with coaches. I judged them personally, figuring out whether I could work with them (only one was too arrogant, I thought, for me to work with). The process was so much more than it seemed. I learned what the coaches were expecting me to say. I learned that I had to be assertive, decisive and honest—and that I had to commit. Connecticut College and Holy Cross were both interested in my saying that one of them was my first choice. (And I need full financial aid to go to a private college.) So I said ‘It’s a go’ to Holy Cross before I heard from University of Vermont, because UVM was so slow and disorganized about financial aid. I’m excited about Holy Cross and next year, but I realize now how arbitrary the schools are about the admission process, and especially about financial aid. I concluded that if I didn’t have something they wanted, I wouldn’t get anything.

Erin Mulvey
I wanted the best academic school I could get into where my field hockey playing could help me, and where I could continue to play my cello in the orchestra. These things didn’t come together too often. I applied early to Columbia with the coach’s support, but then she withdrew her support. I had good grades, but apparently not Columbia-good grades. The coach at Trinity asked me to apply to Trinity ED2 (Early Decision 2); she said everything would work out, but I wasn’t ready to apply early. Ultimately, I got into the honors program at Trinity, and Trinity has everything I want: honors academics, urban living, field hockey, and an orchestra where I can play cello—along with the Hartt School of Music just down the street.


Part II: The Essay

Weaving a life through the eye of an essay is a challenge each senior addresses. Ruminating about the “right” topic is often the opportunity for the most rigorous introspection.

These students wrote:

Alex Heitzman
About why I love woodworking. I needed an essay where the college admission officer would “meet me,” if he read it. It’s a narrow topic, but you can go into why you do it, your sense of design, of structure, and the pleasure of creating something on your own. My work increased in complexity and quality over time, and the pieces were all functional: from a port for my computer, to a headboard, to a cherry and ash bookshelf with mortise and tenon joints, to finally, redesigning and building my family’s mud room at home, and finishing a box as a gift from my squash team to Mr. Millet. If you want a good application, you can’t be nonchalant about it; it takes time and reworking.

Joya
About finding myself in a new church. My dad is a pastor and a preacher. I grew up in a black church in Boston. Then he became pastor of an all-white church. The music was different, not as upbeat. This church was not as open; it was conservative. I was nine years old and I thought, ‘Is this really church?’ Then I started singing, and because of that my own, individual voice came out in that church. I was able to bring my spirit and my smiling. The experience showed me the leader that I could be. It was gradual and natural.

Henry
About the effect of my oldest brother on me, and how I’ve been shaped by him. On first glance that may not necessarily appear to be the best way to sell myself, but it let me highlight traits of my own within a tribute to him, so it made for an interesting exposition of ideas.

Sasha Kamenetska
About a book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. It’s a mathematical and analytical book about Gödel, the mathematician, Escher, the artist, and Bach, the composer, and the relationships in their work. It includes the idea of strange loops—you can find a strange loop, for instance, in Bach’s Canon: at the end, the music comes back into the beginning. That loop describes my identity. I begin as an American, and consider my legacy as a daughter of immigrants, then ultimately come back to the idea that we are all in the same place, and despite differences, we are all American.

Taylor
About my boom box, the boom box that had been with me since freshman year, and that I bequeathed to a freshman in my dorm. It shaped my personality at Milton: it was a symbol of lightheartedness and sharing my passion for music. It showed people that you could be a music aficionado without being a snob about it. The boom box made it easier for people to talk with me—they could talk about the boom box, if nothing else. I made a lot of friends based on music.

Mike
About the line from the song, “What does it mean to be a man?” In my old high school, you could be a jock or you could be in the chorus. They were very separate cliques and represented opposite ends of the spectrum. At Milton, you could do both (I was on varsity hockey and a member of the a cappella group the Miltones). Milton was more like a family: your family would allow you to be both an athlete and a singer. At Milton, people were like onions: they had endless layers. I came to understand a different idea of being a man.

Luis
About the discipline, intensity and structure of my charter school: how the motto clicked in with my motivation and carried me through. I internalized the motto.

Oliver Pechenik
About a novel, Gormenghast, written by Mervyn Peake, who was a visual artist. I’m going to major in math [Oliver received the John N. Stern Scholarship from Oberlin], but aesthetics and art are a central thing for me. The protagonist is an influential hero—not because he’s a serial killer; I’m not fond of murderers nor do I want to become one. It is because what he does is so well done. I’m very interested in the exercise of doing something very carefully. Art is about the process of creation, and an artist is someone whom we hold accountable for every aspect of his or her actions. It is this accountability that I love.

Michelle
About the tensions I am feeling now—I turned 17 in December: the tensions between two sides of my life. How can I be the intellectual and activist for women’s issues that I am, and fit into Orthodox Church culture? I’ve been taught to fight for my beliefs and to speak out. In my church, not being rebellious is important. If I were male, I would probably be considering the priesthood. I decided that I don’t need to give up my faith, or find another faith, to find a service role in my church. As a result of having more confidence in who I am, I’m sure that I can make the elements of my life co-exist: academia, religious life and home life.

Erin
About forgiveness. We heard Linda Biehl speak here at Milton. Her daughter Amy was killed by South Africans when she was in South Africa working against apartheid. Linda Beihl forgave her daughter’s killers. I had held onto anger about a much smaller issue for many years. She showed me how ridiculous that was, and that vengeance was a lazy man’s anger.

I needed to get past my own anger.

Jane Collins
About my hometown, Camden, Maine—what living in a small town next to the ocean means to who you are and what you value, and the impact it has had on me. I can go far away from Maine, and I am going to Whitman College in Washington. But I realized that my upbringing in Maine has everything to do with who I am.

Seohyung
About my experience at math camps. Math makes sense to me. Words don’t make as much sense to me as a one-line equation. The application I struggled most with—and I wanted to go there—was U Chicago. The essay had to be based on a quote from Susan Sontag. She said, ‘The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions.’


Part III: Making the Decision

Alex
I never really thought about what was most important to me, and asking the question why was even more important than what. Brown had a great computer science program, but not a great architecture program (I thought I wanted both). I could take physics, applied math, and keep up my writing. I could play squash. It’s an urban school with a vibrant community. The fact that there are no course requirements means it caters to a special kind of person. It tells me that most people are there because they’re motivated. They have ideas about themselves. They have to make their own future. It’s very diverse.

Shellonda Anderson
I was choosing between Harvard and Brown: both were urban; the atmosphere at both seemed relaxed and laid-back. But Brown had separate revisit programs for black students. At Harvard, the students were all mixed up [racially]. The black students were student leaders, really reaching out to both black and white students. That helped me decide to go to Harvard.

Oliver
I may have had a better sense than others of what I wasn’t looking for, even though I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. Oberlin offered me a very nice merit scholarship. I’m required to major in either math or science. They just picked me out. Then I went to look at it to make sure I didn’t hate it. I loved it: I went to classes, met great people. I liked it better than other schools I got into and certainly as much as the schools where I was wait-listed.

Erin
It’s hard to be at Milton and stay out of ‘bumper-sticker land.’ It would be hard to go to a college people aren’t talking about. Milton has given me so much, but especially the ability to pick myself back up, to be realistic, to have confidence and to have resilience. That will help me in the future, because admission to many things at the next level beyond college becomes even more arbitrary.


Final Words

Henry
Yes, I’m a different person, but not because of the college process. Rather, it was a product of the rest of my life, more like the natural trajectory of maturity and growth. I’m much more willing to commit myself to ‘extra’ things now—like acting. I finally tried it and it worked out well. I’d like a ‘gap year’ next year [a year between high school and the beginning of college]. I want to take a course in mediation and courses in martial arts. I’d like to get a job and make some money so that I could go abroad and travel to several Spanish-speaking countries before I start college.

Seohyung
I learned about myself, what kind of people I’m crazy about, and what kind of things I can do without. I learned the kind of things I envision myself doing, and how to manage myself.

Choosing a college doesn’t define you. It makes no sense to say this or that is the best. There are no real means of comparison. I talked with people at these amazing colleges, and some of them were unhappy.

A choice doesn’t guarantee anything. I have to make my own mark.

The person I am just doesn’t stop here. I have to ask myself, if I didn’t have money, or my reputation, or my college, who would I be?

Sasha
Doing the essay was a learning experience: it made you look both forward and back. You talk about yourself, what’s important, what you want for your future. Senior year forces you to become reflective. The next four years seem daunting; the decision about where to go seems like such a big one when you’re 18. Then, the minute you actually make the decision, you’re in hindsight mode, looking back at why and how some things happened. I’m very optimistic about next year; there’s no reason not to look forward to college.

Stresses, disappointments, realizations and triumphs seem routine for Class I students. Either because of, or despite, the way they tackle their final courses and getting into college, most do develop insight and resilience that will serve them well. All of them credit the college counselors with knowing them well, and insisting that they be true to themselves. Shellonda probably spoke for most students when acknowledging the rite of passage: “It’s hard for seniors to be the same at the end of the year as they were at the beginning. You gain so much knowledge over that year. Your courses change your point of view and your perspective. You speak more with your teachers, your coaches and your dorm faculty as adults and friends. I feel much less like a child. I am optimistic; I am very excited about next year.”


Cathleen Everett

 

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