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VOL. XXXVIII, NO. 4
January 13, 2015
Early Decision Roundtable: Admitted seniors discuss finding dream schools, being done with college essays By Manson Tung Page Editor
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he Octagon recently sat down with members of the class of 2015 (Emma Williams, Aishwarya Nadgauda, Melissa Vazquez and Caroline Mehta) who applied early decision. Early decision is a binding application to a college. If a student is accepted, they must go to that school. Q: You all applied early decision to your respective colleges. How did you know that school was the right fit for you? Melissa Vazquez: Washington University in St. Louis filled everything on my checklist. I wanted someplace new that I could explore. It had to be in a medium-sized city a good distance from home, and they had the PNP (a major that combines philosophy, neuroscience and psychology). Washington University also only has one general education requirement, which is something that I liked about the school.
Aishwarya Nadgauda: Really? I liked the general education requirements at Columbia! Until I saw University of Pennsylvania, my first choice was Columbia because of their core curriculum. Vazquez: I actually didn’t even look at what their core curriculum is. I just really didn’t like them telling me what classes I had to take, but maybe they are cool. Washington University wasn’t my first choice until this year actually. Before that, I didn’t know where I wanted to go, but I was going to apply early action to Yale. My dad went to Yale, and he didn’t have a good time there, but he thought that I would like it there. Emma Williams: That’s the exact opposite from me. I don’t want to say he was unsupportive, but my dad kept asking, “Are you sure you want to apply early to Cornell?” Caroline Mehta: My parents also asked, “Have you considered Vanderbilt, or Johns Hopkins?” “Are
By Amelia Fineberg Copy Editor Vaccination rates in California are up again after a decade-long dip, according to an article published by the Sacramento Bee on Dec. 9. This follows a year-old state law which mandates that personal belief forms must be signed by a doctor for students to be exempted from the vaccinations required to enroll in school, such as those for pertussis and whooping cough. Although certain counties, such as El Dorado and Placer, have significantly higher numbers of unvaccinated kindergarteners, Sacramento County was noted for having a significant decrease in exemption rates from last year. At Country Day, almost no students are unvaccinated, according
to Christy Vail, lower school principal. “Probably...three,” she said, “in the entire lower school.” Parents have to talk about the pros and cons of being unvaccinated with a doctor to get their personal belief forms signed, Vail said. And if there were an outbreak of something those students aren’t vaccinated against, the school would exclude them until the outbreak was over, Vail said. High exemption rates can be dangerous for more than just those who aren’t immunized. Some people can’t get vaccines because they have immune deficiencies, so unvaccinated peers may endanger them too. “Children don’t have as developed of an immune system as adults, so by not vaccinating a child
In celebration of Country Day’s 50th anniversary, a past editor-in-chief of The Octagon will be featured in each issue.
you sure you want to go to GW?” But I just knew that I would fit in at George Washington. Q: What was it like being months ahead of your friends in terms of the getting-things-together process? Williams: Amazing. It’s the best feeling ever. I have nothing left to do with college applications, and everyone else is freaking out. Nadgauda: I finished all my supplementary essays before I heard back from Penn. I would have been done regardless of whether I got in or not, which is nice. See Roundtable, page 7
Above, senior Aishwarya Nadgauda poses with her business professor while accepting her certificate of completion for the University of Pennsylvania’s Management and Technology Summer Institute. (Photo used with permission by Nadgauda) At right, senior Caroline Mehta talks about having to wait for her early admission decision to George Washington University. “This is just getting me more and more stressed out, you guys,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for five days now.” (Photo by Elena Lipman)
Over half of high schoolers didn’t get flu vaccinations
Blast from the Past
you’re putting them at risk of con- just “a little too lazy.” He’s not wortracting a disease or virus that could ried about getting the flu, though. have very serious, lifelong effects,” “Every time I get sick, I just biology teacher Kellie Whited said. come back stronger, so I think my “Even something as simple as the immune system is strong enough,” flu vaccine—children and the elder- he said. Sophomore Ryan Canepa, on the ly are far more susceptible to the flu, so the vaccine gives them a chance other hand, decided to “play it safe” of not contracting something that by getting the vaccine. And freshman Amalie Fackenthal could be potentially life-threatenplays it even safing. “It’s easier to “Every time I get sick, I just er. She gets the every prevent than to come back stronger, so I vaccine year, “to be caretreat (illnesses).” And it really think my immune system is ful,” she said. is a matter of strong enough.” However, she life and death. —Keegan Crain, senior is in the minoriAccording to ty. studies from And even the past years, 98 percent of children vaccination is hit-and-miss. Acwho have died from the flu have cording to the Centers for Disease been unvaccinated. Control and Prevention (CDC), Nevertheless, only 47 percent this year’s vaccine is not as effective of the high-school students got flu against the most common strains vaccinations this year. this season, due to flu mutations. “I didn’t get it because my mom Nonetheless, the vaccine can heard that the shot was less effec- still protect against some predicttive this year,” junior Emma Belli- ed strains and lessen the severity of veau said. any contracted flu virus, according Senior Keegan Crain said he was to the CDC.
Brad Stohr, ’91, was editor-in-chief in his senior year. Stohr attended Swarthmore College as a biology major. He then attended medical and graduate school at Duke University to study how broken DNA is repaired. Stohr now works at University of California, San Francisco, where he is a pathologist and runs his own small research lab. He diagnoses people with cancer and tries to find what makes cancer cells grow and evolve. Q: Favorite memory of high school? A: Some of my strongest memories of high school are from the trips: journalism conferences in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, and, of course, the Ashland trips. It was liberating to spend several days with friends in a setting with limited adult oversight. There was lots of sneaking out and bending the rules. Q: Any issues on campus? A: During my time on the paper, there was a scare in the media about the dangers posed by overhead power lines. Some people believed that the electromagnetic fields (EMF) from the wires could cause leukemia. This was a big problem for Country Day because of the high-voltage wires right over the campus. No parent likes the idea of their kid getting zapped with cancer-causing radiation every day. As part of the story, I was able to walk around the campus with somebody who had an EMF meter. He showed me that the EMF measurements were much stronger sitting in front of a computer than standing under the power lines. Q: Any Octagon memories? A: One change I made while working on The Octagon was redesigning the masthead. Up until then, the “O” in Octagon had been a really chunky octagon shape. I still get and read every Octagon, and I’ve watched over the years as my redesigned masthead kept evolving. —Annya Dahmani For more of the interview, visit scdsoctagon.com.