Student selected to meet Obama

By Madeline Buckley and Madeline Buckley / Monitor staff

June 6, 2010

Earlier this year, Hopkinton High School senior Jillian Peters received a special letter in the mail that she said was quite a surprise.

The letter notified Peters, 18, that her high ACT and SAT scores made her eligible to apply for an award that if granted, would offer a trip to Washington, D.C. and a chance to shake hands with President Obama.

"I can't imagine anyone not applying when they receive a letter like that," Peters said.

So she sent in transcripts, a resume and essays, and recently found that she was one of 141 high school seniors nationwide selected to be a 2010 Presidential Scholar. Peters will be in the nation's capital from June 19-22 to network with the other Presidential Scholars, tour the city and receive a medallion of congratulations for her achievements in high school from Obama.

The scholars program identified about 3,000 students across the country as eligible to apply based on outstanding standardized test scores, and from that, they chose the 141 students.

The high school senior is bound for Harvard in the fall, and has a list of activities and interests as diverse as it is long. She recites poetry, competes on the debate team and math team, was president of her class for four years, is a member of the track and soccer teams, does ballet, modern dance and Scottish dance, and even plays the bagpipes, which she pursued because of a childhood love of Riverdance.

"No, it is not easy to find someone who teaches the bagpipes in Concord," she said.

Peters said she is looking forward to the summer and graduation after the stress of applying to colleges - 12 total for her - and the nervous anticipation of hearing back from the numerous schools she sought out.

"I was absolutely uncertain of where I was going to get in," she said. "It's absolutely a crap shoot."

Peters said the Ivy Leagues generally aren't as familiar with Hopkinton as with other East Coast private schools, but her hard work and extensive list of extracurriculars paid off, as she will head to Cambridge, Mass., in the fall.

Peters had to wait a little longer than her peers though to hear that she was accepted to the university. She realized after sending in the application that she forgot to check the box that allows the school to send an e-mail notification with its admissions decision. When her friends heard from Harvard by e-mail, she had to wait three extra days - then she could breathe a sigh of relief.

"There was a lot of pressure this year, but most of it was honestly just from myself," she said.

Peters hasn't been to Washington, D.C., since she was in the first grade, and she is looking forward to seeing the national monuments with an older perspective, as well as meeting her fellow Presidential Scholars. The trip also involves a service project the students do together and a performance by some of the students at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

And of course, she said, she is excited to meet the president.

"I just want to see and do everything I can when I'm there," she said.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1351221&forum_id=1#15358549)