A message from Nancy Webster, Director of Admission:
This is our 17th year of school, and our alumni are growing up. They are doctors, teachers, nurses, college counselors. They work in industry, higher education, finance—the list goes on.
Recently, I had a long conversation with my mentee, Aly Hughes, Class of 2010. Aly earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Arizona and returned to the Hoosier state for law school, where she is in her third year at Notre Dame Law School. Because of her move, I have had several opportunities to visit with her and asked her to reflect on how she chose University High School.
Aly reminded me that she came from a K-12 school. “I knew everyone there.” Her parents encouraged her to consider other choices for high school, and she remembered, “After my shadow visit at University, I sat down with my parents and made a list of what was most important to me for high school. I wrote down: academics, basketball, and friends. As I listed the pros and cons, University came up as the better choice.” She talked about how her decision was not an emotional one. “I was pretty pragmatic. The academics outweighed everything else.”
She wondered at the time if she would make friends. And she did. She played on University’s basketball team (the team that went on to be runners-up in the State IHSAA tournament) and met fellow player Erin Bortz, with whom Aly remains close friends today. (More about that later.)
When I asked Aly if she could recall a moment when she realized the strength of the academic program, she noted, “Definitely in Great Books with Wes Priest and we were reading The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. I remember thinking we would never be reading this at my old school. We were reading literature, not stories. It’s not about plot. We had discussions about meaning. How does this apply to us? It was real work. There was substance there.”
Her strong academic preparation sent her to the University of Arizona where she thrived. I wondered how going from a small high school to a 40,000 student population worked for her. “So I went to college, a huge school where no one knew me. I was fine. University gave me a really a good base to work from: academic work, organization, and preparation to be in a diverse group of people who believed different things, who looked different, sounded different. At University High School I was exposed to a bigger world on a smaller, manageable scale. Because of University, when I was at college I never felt like there wasn’t something I couldn’t do.”
Now Aly is in law school at Notre Dame. She was quick to tell me, “I am back in a small environment and UHS taught me how to speak to teachers, now law school professors. In high school, I learned how to figure out what teachers really wanted from me. In law school, so much of it is not substance, it’s form—figuring out that different professors want different things. In high school, I talked with smart, accomplished teachers, and now I am doing the same thing in law school. In high school, my teacher, Ms. Dean, taught me how to interpret what she was looking for in her Economics class. There was no word dumping with her, and there isn’t at Notre Dame either.”
And what about making friends at a small high school where Aly did not know anyone? “I definitely found lifelong friends. I have spent the last three Thanksgivings and Easters with Erin Bortz and her family, and I am going to be in her wedding in June as a bridesmaid. Erin is marrying a member of the UHS Class of 2010, Daniel Hellman.” That friendship piece seemed to work out pretty well.
Congratulations on and best wishes for continued success, Aly!