First PA
Homeschooler Accepted at Harvard
from Howard Richman
On December 16, 1997, Noah Snyder became the first PHAA (Pennsylvania
Homeschoolers Accreditation Agency) student accepted at Harvard. Other homeschoolers from Pennsylvania have
been accepted at other Ivy League Schools, including Princeton, but Noah is the
first, to our knowledge, to have been accepted by what is generally considered
to be the most prestigious college in the country.
Seventeen-year-old Noah Snyder has always been homeschooled by his
parents Chuck and Nancy Snyder. He lives
with his parents and three younger homeschooled brothers within the city of
York, PA. His parents are missionaries
to the Deaf Community in York County and also do much freelance interpreting as
well as interpreting for deaf pastors at conferences and on video tapes.
His college admissions saga began last April in his junior year when
his parents took him on a college visiting trip to see which colleges would
give him the opportunities he desired for advanced studies in math.
At each college they would drop in at the Admissions Office and attend
a session about the college and its admissions process. During the question-and-answer time, Noah or
his mother would always ask if there were special admissions procedures for
homeschoolers. They were invariably
told that the colleges admitted homeschoolers on a normal basis, but would look
more closely at homeschoolers' test scores and references than they would at
those of other students. This didn't
bother Noah. He had always scored at
top levels on the College Boards (SAT I & II) and Advanced Placement (AP)
exams and he had very good references from his evaluator and from one of his
professors at Franklin & Marshall College.
The most friendly of all of the colleges that Noah visited was the University of Chicago. The admissions people said that they "loved homeschoolers" because those who had been admitted were doing so well.
After the admissions presentation on the Harvard Campus, Noah and his
family began a tour. Noah only made it
half way through because, as the tour passed the math building, he kept seeing
old friends coming out.
Noah had attended the Ross Young Scholars Program, an eight-week summer
math program, after both his sophomore and junior years of high school. (For
information write to Professor Arnold E. Ross, Dept. of Math, Ohio State
University, 231 W 18th Ave, Columbus OH 43210.) Many of Noah's fellow-students
or counselors from Ross were at Harvard.
The next day, Noah went with one of his friends from the Ross program
to a Topology class. "Topology is
one of those rigorous courses where you do silly things, but do them
rigorously," Noah told me.
"The teacher was proving that the only way to go around a circle was to do it clockwise or counter
clockwise."
Noah came back from the visit knowing that he definitely liked
Harvard. It was one of three schools
that met his criteria for the college of his choice. The other two were Yale and the University of Chicago.
In October, Noah went ahead and filled out the Harvard
application. He applied for early
action which means that Harvard would let him know by mid-December if he were
accepted. At Harvard early action is
not binding on the student, but is binding on the University.
The application called for a standard college essay about himself. Noah explained who he was by focusing on the
time that he had directed a York Teen Theater play, pointing out that making an
original contribution was one of his goals in life.
In early December, Noah was interviewed by a local lawyer, an alumnus
of Harvard. He was taken back into the
lawyer's office and asked questions about why he was interested in Harvard and
what other colleges he was applying to.
The lawyer asked Noah about his extra curricular activities and other
aspects that set him apart from others.
Noah told about his activities with theater, chess, and fencing, and the
college math and science courses that he had taken though still in high school,
and his Westinghouse Science Talent Search Project (Noah was a semi-finalist).
The lawyer asked him how he was able to accomplish so much and Noah
mentioned the flexibility of homeschooling which had given him the opportunity
to pursue so many of his interests.
At one point the lawyer asked "Do you have any learning
disabilities?" Noah answered,
"I don't have a learning disability but I have 12 of the 15
characteristics of ADD." The
lawyer then said that he also had many of the characteristics of ADD and they
had a friendly discussion about how ADD isn't always a bad thing.
Noah knew that he would find out if he were admitted to Harvard on
Monday, December 16. That day he was
scheduled to help take down the set for "Miracle on 34th Street," the
latest show at the Dream Wrights Youth and Family Theater. Noah had just played the parts of Mr. Gimble
and the Mouse King Float (a float in the parade). The set was a tough one to take down and Noah, part of the stage
crew, needed to be working from 11:00 that morning to 9:30 that night.
Every hour, starting at noon, he called home asking his mother if she
had yet received the letter from Harvard.
She had promised not to open it until he called. The mail finally came at 4:30 and Nancy
tried to keep herself busy so she could resist the urge to open the
envelope. However, shaking the envelope
a little, and peeking through the cellophane on the envelope, she could tell
that it looked like an acceptance letter.
Finally, when Noah called at 5:10, she opened the envelope and read him
the letter. Noah was thrilled and
excited and started right away telling everyone at the theater that he had just
been accepted to Harvard. E-mail
messages were flashed to his many friends the next day telling everyone the
good news.
Ironically, Noah may not go to Harvard. He is expecting offers from Yale and the University of
Chicago. If one of those two colleges
offers him a better scholarship, he may yet go to one of them instead.
Noah and his family thank PA
Homeschoolers, the York City School District, Martin Memorial Library, Franklin
& Marshall College, all the homeschool heroes who plug away day by day, and
first and foremost our heavenly Father. l