Congratulations to the Class of 2011

We are so proud of the seniors’ acceptances to a terrific set of colleges and universities-a wonderfully varied and interesting list! Working individually with Carey Socol, our Director of College Guidance, and her associate Analisa Cipriano, LREI ’05, in order to choose schools that match the students’ specific academic and personal ambitions. Our seniors are confident that they have chosen exactly the right schools for them. The college process, which also involves families, advisors, teachers and the high school principal Ruth Jurgensen is comprehensive and inclusive.

Click here to see a complete list of acceptances earned by the class of 2011.

Now that they have chosen the schools that they will attend for the next four years, what will the members of the class of 2011 take with them to their new campus homes? We know, through the experience of our alumni, that the class of 2011 will arrive academically and intellectually prepared to succeed. College will be challenging, as it should be, but our alumni tell us, year after year, that they have had the academic preparation required to thrive in the next stage of their academic career.

One tool for success was noted at this past January’s Alumni College Panel by Lily Wiggins ’07. (Lily is currently attending Pitzer College. She started at LREI at five and is the recent recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Indonesia next year.) Lily told us, “LREI really fosters good relationships between teachers and students. When you go to college, you have the confidence to email them, to get into the classes you want or meet with them outside of office hours because we were used to meeting with teachers at LREI.”

We hear this quite often. LREI not only prepares students with the necessary academic and communication skills, but also with the ability to be advocates for themselves and their beliefs. Taylor Bello ’10, noted:

“My bio class, my chem lab and my chem class all have over 300 students, which was bigger than my whole high school. That was a big change, but because the relationships between teachers and students at LREI are so strong, I was able to go up to professors, talk to them, so they could recognize my face when I raised my hand in class and call me by my first name. Don’t be afraid to talk to professors when you get to college because it makes a huge difference and LREI definitely prepared me for that.” (Taylor is a pre-med student at Boston College. She started at LREI in ninth grade.)

An important component of LREI’s preparation for success in college is providing our students with a range of academic experiences. According to Kai Furbeck ‘10, (Kai, who started at LREI in Kindergarten, is now finishing his first year at Brown University):

“Academically, [at LREI] there’s a lot of room for self-directing and self-motivating and pursuing things you wouldn’t necessarily get a chance to pursue in the classroom. I got the opportunity to take a lot of honors courses where I would meet with teachers individually outside of class or in small groups, and basically, anything you could think of that you wanted to learn, there would be a teacher who knew something about it and could either jump in and learn about it, or if there weren’t many teachers who knew about it, you could find someone willing to learn about it with you and you could both jump in and just sort of explore anything you were interested in. That was one of the most valuable opportunities I had here.”

In addition to providing a range of academic experiences, our students value the variety of co-curricular opportunities they have. According to Jeffrey Adler ’08, “One thing that’s great about LREI is that you’re able to pursue completely different passions at the same time…. A lot of my friends when I went to college, they were like ‘How can you do that? You can’t really manage that.’ The basketball players were like, ‘Theater?’ And all of the theater people were like, ‘Sports? No way.’ But only at a place like LREI can you become the type of person where you can do so much. I am really grateful for that.” (Jeffrey is currently a student at Occidental College and began at LREI at 5. His younger sister Jaquie is in the LREI class of 2019—the third grade.)

In what other ways does LREI prepare its students for the rigors of postsecondary life? What other experiences enable our students to be as successful as they are? According to
Ana De La Cruz ’10, currently a freshmen at Georgetown University, who started at LREI in the eighth grade, “We also got the chance to take classes at NYU. It prepared me so much for college. I took a journalism course and it really helped me improve my writing.” (Ana was speaking of our College Preview Program through which juniors and seniors can take classes at NYU. LREI is the only independent school participating in this program. Students enroll in these classes in addition to all of the requirements for their grade).

Speaking of the lasting impact of her time at LREI, Kamillah Aklaff ’07 added:

“We had all of these amazing speakers come in during our assemblies and all these just really exciting events. People at Tufts are always so impressed when I say that x person came to speak to us in high school and I went on all these trips in school. That was when I think we really got to apply our critical, analytical skills. And then that helped me as I learned and grew at Tufts. I think that I have grown academically and personally and socially in a number of ways at Tufts, but I still always think back to my time at LREI. When I think about how I’ve sort of flourished into this person who is passionate about sociology and doing all these social justice initiatives, I think a lot of that came from my time spent at LREI and all of the skills and values that I learned while I was here.” (Kamillah is a sociology major at Tufts University. She began at LREI at five.)

Confident, connected, passionate, competent, well rounded—our students leave LREI eager and prepared as they go off to college. Once again, please join me in congratulating our seniors as they head off to the colleges and universities of their choice and as they prepare to use all that they learned at LREI as active and involved young adult members of society.

Click here to see a complete list of schools in which the class of 2011 has enrolled.

Click here to read last year’s college blog and list.