Tonight after work, I went to meet a prospective Wellesley student at a cafe near my apartment. And like I have been in the past, I was blown away by this girl’s intellectual curiosity, how she was able to link her philosophy summer sessions’s learning to the last two presidential debates, and how she’s at a history-focused magnet high school, yet is planning to pursue a STEM degree in college. What did she do the last few summers? She’s studied computer science at UC Santa Barbara, philosophy at Columbia, and been designing a choreography with her younger brother for the Hamilton musical. For the two summer programs at two different universities, she found these programs herself, applied, and got in. All I have to say is… Doing activities like that over my summer breaks in high school never even crossed my mind (and who would have funded these excursions? My parents would have laughed in my face). And I thought I was being ambitious by volunteering at an Alzheimer’s center. Nope. I never cease to be amazed each time I meet one of these “prospies” as we affectionately call them, and see how more and more driven, ambitious, and successful they already are at such a young age.