By: Sayellor Taylor
“It was the best academic experience of my whole life.” While some stayed home during the summer break, Kailana Williams, a Tempe Prep senior, went abroad to Notre Dame’s extremely selective Leadership Seminar. More competitive than the school itself, Kailana stands apart from over a thousand other applicants, part of 9% of acceptances.
A ten day camp on the campus itself with dorms, this program aims to gather dedicated and hardworking students to give them a taste of college life.
The application process is rigorous, as the school wants to ensure that they select the most driven and apt youth they can. Like a college application, good grades, short essays, and extracurricular activities are all taken into consideration, making it a holistic overview of one’s accomplishments and efforts thus far.
The program offers countless opportunities to feel immersed in the college experience there. Providing but not requiring bonding activities, communal meals, scavenger hunts, and visits to the city, Kailana had the chance to envision herself attending that school. She comments that it was an individualized experience where you could get food, go out on weekends, and explore as you pleased while abiding by some basic rules.
She also received homework every night as well as a big final project that she was responsible for completing outside of her schooling. The education she received was lecture-style, meaning she was responsible for her own learning and understanding of material. From all her hard work, she earned real-life college credits applicable to nearly every university, allowing her to move ahead in classes.
Her groups’ seminar was centered around socio-economic issues in the Latino community as well as Asian immigration. By the end of the program, she and her teammates presented to policy makers their issues.
It was a beautiful experience for her and she notes that everyone there “wanted to have meaningful conversations and [were] respectful of each other.” Kailana talks about this as a refreshing experience due to the “likemindedness but differing opinions.” Surrounded by other passionate people, the growth and education that she received was awesome, and she adds that it was “welcoming, everyone wanted to be around eachother.”
Her favorite part was visiting a local Chelsea versus Celtics soccer game in a stadium with her friends. The program had a huge impact on Kailana and she highly encourages others to apply, as well.