Randolph-Macon Academy’s Katherine Babineau ’20 wanted to make sure that the summer between her sophomore and junior years would be an impressive one, one that would help build her college resume and at the same time help her clarify her future goals and dreams.Katherine Babineau of Front Royal, VA, attended summer programs at Brown University and Yale University.
Babineau applied to the summer programs at both Brown University and Yale University. Not wanting to put all her eggs into just those two programs, both of which are selective, she also researched other programs and was on the verge of applying to them when she received her acceptance to Brown University’s Summer Program. Elated, she decided that nothing but Yale could top that, so she did not apply to any others.
When she got the emailed notice from Yale that she was accepted to their summer program, Babineau said, “I saw the email said, ‘Congratulations,’ and I dropped my phone. It was awesome. I was so excited.”
Brown was up first, where Babineau spent a week exploring “Using laboratory organisms in biomedical research.” “I had so much fun,” she said. “Class was three hours long. We spent one hour talking about what we were going to do, a lot of time in the lab, and a lot of time looking at the changes taking place. I loved it.”
The freedom at Brown was new to her. As a day student at R-MA, she has her parents at home to keep her on track, and a structured schedule to follow at the Academy. At Brown, no one was there to get her up or tell her when to leave to go to class on time, but she was still expected to be where she was supposed to be. The dorms were more relaxed there as well. “They trust you to make good decisions, and if you don’t, that’s your problem,” she commented. “At the same time, the RA really cared about us.”
From her fantastic experience at Brown, Babineau returned to R-MA for a few intense weeks, where she took World Religions for credit to free up time for more science and math courses during the regular school year. As a future pre-med student, she knows those two subjects are of utmost importance on her transcript, and they are also the subjects she loves.
Not surprisingly, at Yale she took another science course, “Biological and Biomedical Science.” Again she was fascinated by the course material and loved the work, but the time there also confirmed her beliefs about Yale. “Yale was amazing!” she commented. “I had such a great time meeting people from all around the world and learning about new cultures while also getting an in-depth look at what life at Yale University is like. This visit only solidified Yale as my first-choice college.”
This young lady returned to the R-MA campus before most of her peers. She is a member of the Air Force Junior ROTC student leadership, cadre, and attended the summer leadership course, successfully graduating on August 17th. She is also a member of the R-MA varsity football team.