[Ohiogift] Another Good HS Kid

[Will Fitzhugh]

25 May 2017
 
Dear Mr. Fitzhugh,
 
	I was luckily accepted to Boston College (Honours), Brown University, Williams College, Columbia University (John Jay Scholar), and University of Oxford. After weeks of careful consideration, I finally decided to go to Oxford.
 
	I want to thank you and The Concord Review for the wonderful chance you provided. As a South Korean girl writing in English about 17th and 18th century political philosophy, I didn’t fit the eligibility criteria of most institutions which accepted high school students’ research papers. Then I came across The Concord Review. As soon as I discovered that any high school student could submit a research paper about any topic related to History, I decided to apply. I believed that this was my golden opportunity.
 
	It indeed turned out to be golden for me. Until then, I wanted to be a scholar, but, at the same time, I had no idea what becoming a scholar actually meant. I loved to write, but I never had the chance to show my writings to anyone who could objectively assess them without knowing who I am. Thus, writing a 5,000-word research paper and getting it published in an international journal was an invaluable experience for me. After months of researching and writing for a single paper, I not only learnt the meaning of being a scholar, but also became more certain about my academic interest. After getting acknowledged solely for my work for the first time, I became more confident about writing and sharing my knowledge. The time and effort I spent writing for The Concord Review returned to me as deeper insight into myself.
 
	More confidence and improved understanding about myself helped me more than anything during my senior year. I proudly answered that I want to be an academic whenever someone asked my future plans, because I had experienced and grown to like the rigorous process of researching. I enjoyed writing History essays, because I knew what I wanted, valued, and loved: acquiring new knowledge, making it my own, and sharing it with others. I applied to British universities as a Philosophy, Politics & Economics major without hesitation. And warnings from friends and family that changing major would be nearly impossible did not scare me, because I became certain that European political philosophy is what I want to study at college while writing “John Adams and the Hobbesian View of Human Nature” for The Concord Review. I am unsure whether my college result would have changed if it weren’t for the eight months I spent on my “John Adams” paper. However, one thing I am sure of is that my senior year would have been much more stressful without the experience.  
 
	So, thank you for giving me the chance to engage in a world-wide discussion as a scholar. Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to better understand myself. Thank you for making it accessible to every high school student regardless of gender, race, or nationality. I can imagine how many lives will be changed just like mine was, and I am grateful for that.
 
Best,
Yeorin An

보낸 사람: fitzhugh at tcr.org <mailto:fitzhugh at tcr.org>
보낸 날짜: ‎2017‎년 ‎5‎월 ‎25‎일 ‎목요일 ‎오후‎ ‎3‎:‎51
받는 사람: 안 여린 <mailto:aar108103 at hotmail.com>



===========

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osu.edu/pipermail/ohiogift/attachments/20170531/3fc143db/attachment.html>