Our Wildwood, Summer 2016, Volume 39

Was there a moment or incident that happened at Wildwood that changed the way you look at education or changed the way you look at your passion? The best example of that was my math class this year. I, and two other students, finished the pre-defined curriculum available at the school, so we met with our teacher and other administrators and we created our own class, a linear algebra class. Up until then, all the math that I was doing was just finding new ways to manipulate numbers. Finally in linear algebra, we went through different proofs and definitions, starting with axioms to create our own definitions and theorems and building a set of mathematics from the ground up. And that experience that Wildwood gave me—of being able to pick my own class and develop a curriculum that interested me and sparked my interests—is something unique to this school. Let’s fast-forward a little bit and think about the future now: college. Tell me a little bit about your college application process. To be very blunt, the college process sucks and is terrible for a lot of the people involved. Having said that, I don’t think there’s any place I would have rather done it than at Wildwood. I almost left Wildwood in 8th grade because I was worried about taking Advanced Placement classes and Wildwood doesn’t offer them. But now, having talked to friends who have taken AP classes and having submitted college applications, the idea of APs doesn’t make sense to me. At Wildwood, I’ve learned the same content as a lot of APs. I was able to take the calculus I AP test. Here, I was able to take classes that were more suited to what I wanted to do and what I wanted to learn. When it came time for college applications, rather than listing AP classes, I got to list different activities and accomplishments that wouldn’t have been allowed with the very set curriculum AP offers. I can talk about the different things I’ve built in my STEM class and creating my own math class, which not only looks better on a college application but also feels better as a student. I have known probably since 8th or 9th grade that I wanted to do engineering. My decision came down to Berkeley and Michigan. They are almost the same in terms of engineering rankings. They have almost the same number of Nobel laureate professors. I spent a lot of time talking to faculty and students. I came to the conclusion that the people at Michigan are more invested in the individual’s learning and a more well-rounded experience. Because of that, I have chosen Michigan. M Why did you choose the University of Michigan? How did you make that choice?

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Our Wildwood /Summer 2016 6/7

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Max Caplow, attending University of Michigan Herach Danlyan, math teacher