Hometown: Los Angeles, CA

Year: First-Year

College: Ezra Stiles

Major: Humanities

Extracurriculars: Just Add Water; The Yale Record, writer

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Profile

Alec is a rising sophomore in Ezra Stiles College, originally hailing from Los Angeles. Although Alec is majoring in humanities, he also has taken a keen interest in East Asian languages and literature while at Yale, an interest that prompted him to spend his summer in Beijing, China, after his first year of college, participating in an immersive language program in Chinese language and culture.

Before coming to Yale, Alec was engaged in a wide variety of extracurricular activities. He captained his school’s speech and debate team and was an editor for the school newspaper, joined student council, and coached special Olympics, specifically for track and soccer. However, since coming to Yale, Alec decided to branch out and explore new activities and communities. He still maintains some of his passions, such as writing, by contributing to The Record. He also co-directed and cowrote a play for the Yale Children’s Theater.

Beyond this, he is a member of Just Add Water, an improv group that, according to Alec, has provided him with one of the most important communities he has found at Yale. It was this very sense that drew him to Yale in the first place: Upon researching and asking about Yale, Alec thought it would be the place where he would find the most welcoming, friendly, and accepting group of people.

On a snow day, Alec was walking around campus; he marveled at the snow and caught snowflakes with his tongue. Eventually he turned around and saw another student walking across campus doing the exact same thing. It was this memory that best exemplified what he loves about his community: people at Yale are driven, impressive and intelligent, but they are also fun and silly and rarely take themselves too seriously.

Alec’s essays include five of his Yale supplemental essays.

ESSAY 1 (YALE SUPPLEMENT):
Why do these areas appeal to you? (Political science, humanities, ethics, philosophy)

My intense love for humanity has led me to pursue these areas of academic exploration. While I acknowledge that humankind is in no way perfect, when I look to our extensive history, I can’t help but feel overwhelmed and amazed by what we have accomplished. Whether it’s discovering the most effective way to lead and organize society, the philosophical roots behind our impulses and actions, or the ways in which the human condition has been artistically and historically expressed, I want to study humanity from multiple angles so that I can get the most complete understanding possible.

ESSAY 2 (YALE SUPPLEMENT):
Why does Yale appeal to you?

In addition to the focus on a well-rounded liberal arts education, the ability to “shop” around for classes that interest me, and the impressive access to research opportunities, I love Yale because of the strong sense of community that it fosters. Yale’s ability to bring together amazing students from around the world, while encouraging collaboration and teamwork is impressive and creates the supportive learning environment that I crave. Additionally, the inter-residential-college competitions seem fun and exciting, and I would love the opportunity to grow even closer to my classmates while competing in the Freshman Olympics.

ESSAY 3 (YALE SUPPLEMENT):
Short takes

Who or what is a source of inspiration for you?

I admire my mom because of her ability to make others feel genuinely loved and appreciated. It’s impossible to have a conversation with her without smiling.

If you could live for a day as another person, past or present, who would it be? Why?

I would live as Neal Cassidy during the counter-culture period, so that I could be a part of the Beat movement and fight for passion, self-expression, and love.

You are teaching a Yale course. What is it called?

I am teaching “Imagineering: How to Dream like Disney,” a course detailing the intersection of creative thinking and dream chasing, and how those philosophies can be applied to everyday life.

Most Yale freshmen live in suites of four to six students. What would you contribute to the dynamic of your suite?

In addition to my light-hearted sense of humor, I believe that I could use my skills in photography to take awesome portraits of my suite mates, which we could use to decorate our room.

ESSAY 4 (YALE SUPPLEMENT):
What is a community to which you belong? Reflect on the footprint that you have left.

Since I was fourteen years old, I have volunteered every Saturday morning to coach soccer and track and field for the Special Olympics. For the past five years, I have worked closely with the same group of special needs athletes and have developed personal relationships with each one. The pure love, affection, and unadulterated innocence that they radiate are infectious and propel me to be a kinder and more compassionate person. Grateful for this eye-opening experience, I wanted to share it with my classmates and get my school community involved with the program. As the president of the Community Service Leadership Team, I worked extensively with the administration to organize and lead a sports skills clinic on campus for special needs athletes across the district, as well as a school-wide End-the-R-Word campaign to promote a respect for and understanding of people with special needs. Whenever I walk by the commemorative banner hanging in Loyola’s hallway and see the hundreds of signatures of students pledging their respect, knowing that I made a difference in my school community, I smile widely, almost as widely as when Mark, one of my soccer players, calls me his “best buddy.”

ESSAY 5 (YALE SUPPLEMENT):
Reflect on a time in the last few years when you felt genuine excitement learning about something.

AP English Language was the best class that I have ever taken, because we went beyond the requirements needed for the AP test and studied literature intensely. We made bold connections to philosophy, critical theory, and history. From Christian readings of Beowulf to post-colonial analyses of Heart of Darkness, we always found ways to look at texts from different perspectives. I distinctly remember the feeling of excited anticipation that I had before each class and the sense of amazed wonder that I felt at the end. Through this course, I truly found my love for the humanities. My efforts culminated in an eleven-page research paper, exploring how Shakespeare’s Macbeth presents the nuanced strata of Elizabethan ontology influenced simultaneously by its existing religious foundation and the rise of scientific empiricism. For one month I researched the topic intensively and met constantly with my teacher; I even contacted a university professor and conducted a personal interview with him. That paper had been the hardest I had ever worked on a single assignment, but it was all worth it because it gave me the opportunity to develop a newfound sense of scholarly passion, curiosity, and drive.

From 50 Yale Admission Success Stories: And the Essay That Made Them Happen, edited by the Yale Daily News Staff. Copyright © 2020 by the authors
and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group.