As a senior, my high school years are nearing their end and the time is coming to embark on bigger projects and higher pursuits. Thus far, I believe my journey, along with all its fruits (including but not limited to this website) has been nothing short of Providential.
As I look forward to my post-graduation plan, I would be remiss to ignore the path down which I have come. By far, the most important (and most digestible) lessons that I will emerge from my secondary education with are the following: Providence, prudence, and posterity.
Forgive me if this becomes a lengthy summation of my experience in the modern school system, for I write not with this motive, but driven by a deeper conviction: The Great Commission calls us to teach the graciousness of the Lord to all peoples, and I would be doing a disservice to the kingdom of Heaven if I failed to share my story.
It is these three principles that I have based hundreds of decisions upon, including one of the most important choices in my life: where I am to spend the next four years of my life.
Across the past four years at a New York public high school (the description itself, I have found, seems to convey the image I hope to instill), I have become somewhat of an educational anomaly. It has been both a struggle and a blessing to attend school every weekday, and I can confidently declare that my ideological and educational development has been a shock to the system I was placed in. I will never say that I hate my experience in public school or those who stewarded it, as I am quite grateful for the perspective I had in my most seminal years. Although I had discovered both my interest in politics and conservatism outside the walls of my middle school, experiences I had within them kindled the passion I continue to have today.
While the conversations I had were invaluable, I slowly began to deviate from the overall social fabric that bound together the masses of the public education system.
My education was also as secular as possible. I developed my love for Christ and devotion to his mission independently from the schools’ education, yet it is the culture my faith developed in where I learned to despair not, and find God in all parts of life.
Yet as I integrated each Christian value into my life, the actions and comments of my peers made them appear farther away from me.
As I can probably predict, it is to the New York public school system’s great dismay that a student’s passion for conservatism and Catholicism would not have been possible without their egregiously designed curriculum and cultivated environment. If I am to add, my story also speaks greatly to the presence of beauty in a fallen world.
I originally had no interest in attending college, not because I didn’t believe I wasn’t a good fit for higher education, but because at that point, all the schools I knew of didn’t honor what I came to learn college is meant to be. All the emails, ads, and literature mailed to me made post-secondary education sound like a mere continuation of my current studies with an added focus on vocational training (“look at our undergrad placement levels!”). Simply put, other “liberal arts” schools treat the pursuit of truth and defense of liberty with secondary importance, if acknowledged at all.
I had not yet discovered that a true liberal arts education concerns itself with exactly that.
Slowly through my high school years, I learned the true value of a liberal education. Michael Knowles’ repeated commentary on the value of the Liberal Arts (to teach you how to “spend your free time”) and Bill Buckley’s episode of Firing Line featuring Cornel West, Elizabeth Kennan, and John Agresto (whose quote “in the life of the mind you don't lose anything by sharing” I, much to my advantage, I presume, directly quoted in my Hillsdale admissions interview). Once I, somewhat begrudgingly, came to understand my error in how I viewed higher education, I accepted the fact that no other model of education would satisfy my idea of a fulfilling undergraduate experience.
Though I had known about the College years before (YouTube must consider me a prime target for their ads about their new online courses), I had only recently considered it as a real option for my higher education. Hillsdale quickly became my “number one” choice for continuing my education.
So, on November 11th, 2025, I applied.
On January 9th, 2026, I was accepted.
I was accepted into the college whose Honor Code reads “A Hillsdale College student is honorable in conduct, honest in word and deed, dutiful in study and service, and respectful of the rights of others. Through education the student rises to self-government.”
I was accepted into a college whose leaders are not afraid to face the possibility of worldly defeat or financial troubles in the name of protecting the bedrock of Western Civilization.
I was accepted into a college that, in the classroom, treats the words of Aristotle, the Bible, and the founding fathers as indispensable supports of the society we enjoy today.
I was accepted into a college because I believe I made clear my intentions to pursue higher education not only for myself but for the future of Providence, prudence and posterity.
I have never been the type of person to instantly meld with a group of new people. For as long as I can remember, I have been selective with who I choose to spend my time around. Yet my visit to Hillsdale last month was the first place I could have a genuine connection with anyone I met. I attribute that to a consistent set of values running faithfully through the entire campus and stewarded carefully by every soul.
I look to the school not for my own gain, but for the gain of God’s kingdom. Education at Hillsdale College, I find, is not treated as an instrument of self-advancement, but to advance the principles that lead our fellow man to the kingdom of Heaven and the life of the mind. Further, the College does not apologize (as many do) for their intensive liberal arts curriculum, but lauds it as a critical part of the school’s mission of developing the minds and improving the hearts of its young scholars. The professors approach the ideas of the West’s greatest figures with gravity, and recognize their integral part of our American experience.
Hillsdale College is, as I have observed so far, more devoted to the three principles I have come to value in my development thus far, than any other school in the United States. And so, it is my honor, with great anticipation, that I announce my official commitment to Hillsdale College as part of the Class of 2030.
From this day on, I join in the prayer that builders set in the cornerstone of the College’s new campus at its founding in 1853:
“May earth be better and Heaven be richer because of the life and labor of Hillsdale College.”
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