Category: Meet Our Clients

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Gillian

Gillian

England

The Patent Lawyer

Columbia Law School

We first worked with Gillian when she was a high school student applying to college. She eventually attended Colby, a liberal arts college, to study both art and sociology. She contacted us again after graduating Colby for help planning her future.

Gillian shared how her interests in the sociological applications of art led her to intern at the Art Institute of Chicago prior to senior year. She worked closely with the photo editor in clearing reproduction rights for images and other copyrighted material.  She gained some understanding of the rules by which artistic knowledge was circulated and replicated, discovering in intellectual property (IP) laws a key aspect of the relationship between art  and society.  

During her senior year, Gillian met the Associate Director for Conservation at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The director showed her how new technologies and digitization were changing the understanding of how art should be conserved and replicated at an unprecedented rate.  The museum’s Rights and Reproduction Department faced complicated issues when it came to securing artists’ copyright protection given the new forms by which art was being produced and the proliferation of unmonitored online exchange.

Gillian came away from the discussion believing she was intersecting with a crucial moment in the history of art and law. She applied for an internship at a top law firm with a renowned IP practice. She read through case files and discovered IP law offered her the chance to grapple with the questions raised during her visit to the Whitney. After giving a presentation on artificial intelligence’s influence on redefining traditional practices of copyright authorship, Gillian knew she wanted to become an IP lawyer.

Gillian’s time at Colby made her aware an education in law would not be enough, so she applied for post graduate studies in sociology of media and culture at Cambridge University in England.  She believed the master’s program would provide her with theoretical and analytical skills to understand the impact of technology on both art and IP law.

We also worked with Gillian to identify the best law schools for her future practice area. She decided to apply Early Decision to Columbia because of its Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts. The Short List helped her craft her resume and work through her essays to highlight how Columbia would provide her a distinct opportunity to engage with issues of authorship, new forms of cultural production, and the dissemination of artistic knowledge. Gillian’s focus and commitment paid off when she received word just before the holidays she had been accepted and would soon be moving to New York City, one of the world’s artistic capitals.

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Jack

Jack

New York

The Gap Year

University of Chicago

Jack
Jack was born in Australia, and his parents make their home in Hong Kong. He was home-schooled for several years and often joined his parents on their global travels. In a world of adults, Jack found his personal escape in books. Those books motivated him to become a storyteller.

Jack’s family enrolled him in a boarding school in England at the age of eight, where he learned to adjust from a world of all adults to one of only kids his age. Jack still loved stories, and by the time he got to high school, he was telling them through photography. His classmates began asking him to photograph their events. They often joked that, while Jack followed their moves on the football pitch, they followed his movements up and down the sidelines capturing them in action. After the games, Jack’s room would come alive with students eager to relive the game through his photos.

We met Jack in the spring of his junior year and began helping him plan a gap year. In late summer, Jack suddenly announced he wanted to apply to university now, instead of during his gap year. Jack hadn’t visited a school, taken a standardized test, or done any preparation to apply. We knew he—and we—needed to move quickly.
We helped Jack register for the SAT and lined him up with our test prep division. We then helped him research schools. He had a growing list with no demonstrated interest, so we recommended he plan some visits and helped Jack put together a college tour for the fall of his senior year. He fell in love with the University of Chicago and wanted to apply Early, but meeting the Early Decision deadline with the quality application we knew he needed was going to be difficult. Thankfully, UChicago has an Early Decision II deadline. It would still be binding but would give Jack six more weeks to prepare.

Jack worked hard on his essays and activity resume and secured recommendations from his teachers and counselor. We held our collective breath until we saw his SAT results were within range. Jack stayed focused and submitted his application before the deadline. In mid-February, we received an email confirming that Jack had been accepted, and will join Zoe at UChicago after his gap year.

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Sarah

Sarah

Massachusetts

The Future Governor

Harvard


Sarah was a member of The Short List’s Monday Night Group Class. She loved working with five other students and two counselors each week to craft her story in an application that would get her noticed. Little did we know Sarah’s story would go well beyond her applications.

Sarah grew up in an unconventional mountain town in the middle of a state forest. Her town is the second-smallest town in Massachusetts with only 150 year-round residents, and no one in her family has ever gone to college.

Sarah is a National Honors Society student who took every advanced course her school offers. She then enrolled in several online courses to go beyond her school’s offerings. Like many rural areas, Sarah’s town does not have high-speed Internet, and much of Sarah’s homework and class assignments, especially her online courses, required her to go online. Sarah would drive a few miles to the parking lot outside the one-room town hall where she could access the Internet through the town’s satellite Wi-Fi service. There were many nights her mother had to drive over to the town hall to ensure Sarah would come home and get some sleep.

Sarah is a born leader. She is senior class president, a three-sport athlete, and team captain. However, her resume is dominated by community service. She has coached soccer every Saturday morning, worked with the homeless, and helped organize her town’s summer church fair. When her community suffered particularly hard during the economic downturn, with factories and local businesses shutting down or moving away, Sarah led the local chapter of Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD), helping provide positive alternatives to young people losing hope and turning to opioids and alcohol.

Her story caught the attention of Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, who invited Sarah to his State of the Commonwealth (State) address. Sarah thanked him for the invitation but couldn’t attend because her basketball team was playing a critical game to determine their playoff chances. Much to Sarah’s surprise, the Governor shared her story in his speech and then invited her to the state capitol to personally meet with him and his wife. They asked Sarah about her ambitions and life on the mountain, including what it was like sitting in the car late at night doing her homework. Sarah humbly replied, “It wasn’t so bad. I just turned on the heat in the winter, but in warmer weather I would sit outside.” Listening, we completely agreed with the Governor’s assessment of Sarah: “You are an incredible young lady.” On March 28, Ivy League notification day, Sarah sent a text that said it all, “I got into Harvard!”


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Wonjai

Wonjai

South Korea

The Social Scientist

Pomona College

Wonjai
We met Wonjai during his freshman year attending an international school in Seoul. Wonjai is an extremely bright young man who did exceptionally well in school. He had a near-perfect GPA and was a two-sport athlete, but found his greatest joy as an active member of Global Issues Network and Model United Nations.

Wonjai loved both classroom and experiential learning, so we encouraged him to explore summer programs in global politics. Prior to high school he enjoyed a three-week Global Issues Network program on the John Hopkins University campus. We recommended he spend part of sophomore summer at Georgetown University’s two-week summer MUN development program, followed by a Habitat for Humanity build in Cambodia, to continue broadening his worldview.

Wonjai entered his sophomore year understanding firsthand how economically divided the world is. He became more involved in both MUN and GIN, attending MUN conferences in Seoul, The Hague, and Beijing during his remaining high school years. He also organized an annual Habitat trip to Thailand. Junior summer he participated in a four-week social internship for low-income communities in the Boston area.

Junior year is often the most difficult year of high school, and Wonjai reached a point where his intense academic and extracurricular commitments threatened to overwhelm him. He decided to hit the pause button and give himself permission to dial back on his club commitments and take a more relaxed approach to his studies. The change worked for him. As Wonjai focused on learning rather than grades, a surprising thing happened—his grades actually went up.

Between his junior and senior years, Wonjai was accepted into Notre Dame’s selective GIN program, “Towards A Just Peace,” where he met equally passionate students. He also went on several college visits and had settled on an Early school, but we encouraged Wonjai to make one final trip to visit Pomona College in Claremont, California, before returning to Seoul. By the end of the visit, Wonjai’s entire college outlook changed. He discovered a diverse international community focused on the liberal arts and learning. He walked off the campus knowing it was the school for him.

We were equally excited but knew he had an uphill battle. It had been years since Pomona had accepted a student from his high school. Wonjai was fearless and determined, so we worked with him to tell his story through his application and leverage the support of his teachers and counselor. In December we received an email from Wonjai with the subject line, “AMAZING NEWS!!!,” followed by, “Forgive the all-caps, I figured the occasion warranted it!” We couldn’t have agreed more.


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Zoe

Zoe

New York

The Junior Olympian

University of Chicago

Zoe

Zoe comes from an international family in the heart of New York City. Her father is Colombian and Cuban, and her mother Ecuadorian. Zoe loves everything about living in the city, especially the Natural History Museum where they began to know her by name. She is a visual and experiential learner.

As a young girl, Zoe was diagnosed with hypotonia—a condition that results in low muscle strength—that would leave her weak and listless. Her family enrolled her in Taekwondo, and she took to it immediately. She practiced every day and watched her body get stronger. Her growing confidence carried over to competitions. She quickly climbed the ladder at her dojang and began entering national and international competitions. She qualified for the Junior Olympics at age 11 and took a silver medal. By the time she was a junior in high school she was winning gold medals.

We began working with Zoe as a junior and could immediately see she was a prolific writer and debater, with a love for economics and the social sciences. Despite her intelligence, Zoe’s challenges often left her frustrated. Once identified, however, she was given the tools that allowed her to soar in everything, including academics. She understood others suffered the same and decided to independently research education policy reform around special education. Amazed by her research, her school asked her to present her findings to the entire student body.

We recognized it would take a unique school to match her academic ambitions, urban sensibility, and drive to succeed. She is accomplished in so many different ways that we challenged her to consider schools she might not have thought of. She visited the University of Chicago and immediately fell in love. UChicago has a rigorous core curriculum, a quarter calendar that moves twice the speed of a semester calendar, and world-renowned social sciences departments, particularly in economics. Zoe’s mind was made up when she found she would be able to conduct research as a freshman.

We showed Zoe how to demonstrate her interest and build a relationship with the school. She had the GPA and test scores, and now just needed to complete her application. Like everything in Zoe’s life, she jumped in with great intensity. Every word of every essay had to be just right before she would hit the Early Decision I submit button. Zoe received the good news she had been accepted just before the December holidays and knew she had submitted her last application. She is already planning for her move to Chicago in the fall.


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Tucker

Tucker

Japan

The Multidisciplinarian

Tufts University

Tucker
Some people are born performers. Tucker is one of them. His mother is Japanese and his father American. They raised Tucker and his older brother in both Japan and the States. Both boys were young musical prodigies. We worked with Tucker’s older brother, now a student at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, when he was attending an international school in Japan. Tucker attended the same high school in Tokyo but transferred to a boarding school in Massachusetts after freshman year.

Tucker is known throughout his school as an actor, singer, and musician. He has played the violin since he was four and composed music for as long as he can remember. He has been a member of numerous jazz bands, orchestras, and a capella groups and has played the lead in countless school productions. Whether it’s Grease, Spamalot, or Hairspray, Tucker’s classmates expect to see him front and center.

Tucker’s world off stage is very different. He is an unassuming, quiet student who cares deeply about the world around him. He spent six weeks prior to 10th grade in a language immersion program in Spain, and half of sophomore year as the only Western student at the African Leadership Academy in South Africa. Tucker attends school in rural Massachusetts where environmental protection defines the area. He is the president of his school’s Environmental Action Club and helped write the school’s environmental policies. This combination of music, culture, and environment has come to define his goals.

Tucker longed to find a way to combine his interests in a meaningful way. He knew of schools with strong environmental science or music programs, or even cultural or international programs, but longed to find one that combined all three. Tucker visited many schools, but always came back less than enthusiastic. He would rave about aspects of the school but never about the whole school. The Short List refused to give up on helping him find a school that could offer everything he was seeking.

One weekend, Tucker was visiting his brother in Boston, and we encouraged him to visit Tufts, a school renowned for its international focus, strong musical partnerships, and environmental programs. Tucker discovered a world where he could pursue environmental studies in close collaboration with professors and classmates, audition for a dual degree with the New England Conservatory of Music, and even design and teach his own course in the Experimental College, affectionately known as the ExCollege. Tucker took the holidays to consider his options and eagerly applied Early Decision II.

Tucker found a way to communicate his background and interests in one of the best-written essays we had ever read. He communicated the same in his supplement essays, always viewing them as a way to express himself. He eagerly hit the submit button. Six weeks later he sent a text that simply said, “I got in!”


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William

William

Ohio

The Raconteur

Middlebury

Client: William

William’s family contacted The Short List during his junior year. He was a bright student near the top of his class, and we learned a few key things about him very quickly: He is extremely mature, a great writer, and a music lover. He is also able to find good in most things.

The Short List explored several options with William and began to make recommendations. The challenge was that William found a reason to attend nearly every school on his growing list. We encouraged him to visit schools and attend the college meetings at his school. He began basing his college list on how well he felt he connected with the schools’ representatives. The problem was that he connected with nearly all of them. We asked him to dig deeper and consider the programs that they offered.

William loves language, which is clear in his writing, as well as his study of Mandarin Chinese. He exhausted every Mandarin course at his high school, and he emphasized that he wanted to attend a school with a strong Chinese language program. William did not have a clear favorite among the schools he was considering. We recommended Middlebury and, characteristically, William was ready to apply early before even visiting. We encouraged him to reconsider that decision, despite our feelings that Middlebury might be a great school for him.

He took our advice and focused on completing and submitting applications to all the schools on his final list. When William was accepted to Middlebury in early spring, among other schools, he was ready to send in his deposit. Again The Short List stressed the importance of visiting different schools before committing. The family decided to visit the three top schools on his list. Middlebury was the first of the three, and by the third night William had made his decision. Before he could even reveal his choice, his parents gave him a Middlebury T-shirt, telling him it was obvious how happy he was on the campus. They had been so certain of his choice that they slipped into the bookstore and bought him the T-shirt while he was occupied at a meeting during their campus visit.


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Summer

Summer

China

Multiple Applications

Princeton

Client: Summer

The Short List started working with Summer after she had been denied by most of the schools to which she had applied. We had worked with several of Summer’s classmates who recommended she speak to us before deciding between acceptance to a U.S. school that did not excite her, school in the U.K., or a gap year before applying again.

Summer was a top student who should have had more choices. It soon became clear that her application materials were a key part of the problem: There was no theme to them. Her essays were not very well thought out and she did not highlight the things that we felt would have made her stand out.

We helped Summer plan a gap year to deal with her loss and find a new purpose. Summer had gone through a very difficult year. In addition to applying to college, she was completing the final year of her IB diploma program. While challenging, this workload should have been manageable for someone with Summer’s academic record. We pressed for more information and finally learned that her father had passed away during the previous year. We asked if she really felt ready for college. It was as though a watershed had opened; someone had finally given Summer permission to deal with her loss.

We helped Summer plan a gap year to deal with her loss and find a new purpose.

She spent the first months after graduation at home with her mother as both adjusted to life without her father. While home, she learned that she had scored a perfect 45 on her IB final exams, something that only 1% of students worldwide achieve. She then signed up for an art history course in Italy and was awarded a two-month marine conservation internship in Madagascar for December and January. From February on, she stayed in Beijing with extended family and took an intensive language course.

Summer had started running as a coping mechanism and, as she built her endurance, decided to run the New York City marathon, registering with the American Stroke Association to honor her father. She spent several weeks prior to the race in the U.S., and we encouraged her to use the time to visit schools. She wrote essays that revealed her strengths in meaningful ways and sent her early application to Princeton only once she was fully satisfied with it. Days later she found herself at the start line of the marathon. Summer shared that she met other families who had lost loved ones and thought about her father throughout the race: “This year is bittersweet; wonderful developments are happening in my life but I can’t share them with my dad. I know that wherever my dad is now, he is looking down on me with pride.” Six weeks later, Summer learned that she had been accepted to Princeton.


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Souhail

Souhail

Lebanon

The Coach

Villanova

Client: Souhail

Souhail is Lebanese and was a junior in high school in Beirut when he was referred to The Short List. He was hoping to earn a degree in engineering from a U.S. college, so his parents engaged The Short List to help guide their son through the admissions process. We started by trying to uncover what made Souhail special.

The more Souhail shared with us, the more we could see that he loved soccer. He had been playing since he was a little boy and was now the captain of his high school team. But his leadership extended well beyond his school team. He organized his teammates to build a soccer field for boys at a local refugee camp and was able to obtain donated soccer balls for their practices and games. The boys were not accustomed to being organized or disciplined, and had little trust for anyone outside the camp. over the next 18 months, Souhail and his friends organized regular practices, helped the boys build their skill level, and arranged games. Slowly, Souhail gained the boys’ trust and saw changes in them that most people would not have dreamed possible.

One day, Souhail and his teammates showed up for a practice only to find the refugee camp abandoned. The boys had been taken away the day before, and Souhail was given no further information on where they had gone. He was devastated because he had bonded with many of the boys and worried about their future. The experience changed his life, and Souhail wanted to find a way to continue community outreach in college. Souhail’s family dissuaded him from applying to binding Early Decision programs because he had not been able to visit many schools. They asked The Short List to come up with a list. We looked for schools with strong engineering programs, as well as strong outreach programs. Souhail was accepted to several schools but chose Villanova, a Catholic school outside Philadelphia, for its Top 10 engineering program and its reputation for having one of the most community service-oriented student bodies in the United States.

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Sam

Sam

Switzerland

The Rower

Princeton

Sam

Sam was born in the U.S. but has lived abroad most of his life. His family established roots in Geneva, and he became a dual citizen of the U.S. and Switzerland.

Sam came to The Short List as a dedicated student with a solid academic profile. He was involved in a variety of extracurricular activities and active within his school community. As a talented rower, he hoped to join an elite crew team in college. What Sam needed most was help managing the application process from abroad, especially given his demanding school and rowing schedules.

The Short List looked for ways to reduce the pressure of the application season for Sam. Part of that process was helping Sam order his priorities clearly so he knew what to focus on in evaluating and applying to schools. Being recruited by an elite rowing program was certainly Sam’s ambition but was not as important to him as finding the best school to support his love of math and science.

The Short List helped Sam develop a balanced list of colleges that offered the academic programs he desired. We also walked him through the necessary steps to build relationships with college coaches, helped him understand the NCAA recruiting rules, and identified specific ways he could advocate for himself both with coaches and admissions. We also helped him map out an application strategy to stay on top of deadlines.

Sam spent the summer before his senior year earning a spot on and competing with the Swiss Junior National Team, and he shared this achievement with the coaches at his target schools. The Princeton crew coach, in particular, expressed clear interest in Sam based on both his academic achievements and his rowing capabilities. Sam knew Princeton University offers one of the U.S.’s top math and science programs and top rowing programs. He also recognized admission to an Ivy League school is never guaranteed, even as a recruited athlete. The Short List recommended he apply Restricted Early Action to affirm his interest and demonstrate his commitment.

Six weeks after submitting his application in November, Sam was one of just 700 students offered early admission to Princeton University. He will study in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and row with Princeton’s nationally ranked crew team. We are thrilled to have helped Sam achieve his academic goal and fulfill his dream of rowing at an elite college level.