College Bound!

This post is long overdue.......by about 1.5 years. Anyways, better late than never.... right?

Jay graduated High School in May 2019, securing 3^rd rank in his class of 256. He will be majoring in Physics at University of Illinois, Champaign, Urbana. He excelled through his 4 years of high school. He won many accolades, but I think he is most proud of winning the Scholar-Athlete award all the 4 years as a part of the cross-country team. In the summer of 2018 he ran a total of 300 miles which is an achievement in itself.

Recognizing his achievements in high school, the university waived his tuition for all the 4 years. All he has to pay for is room and board. Besides that he won close to $3500.00 in scholarships. Notably the Michael O’Connell Scholarship which is the highest honor bestowed upon a senior. He was also a finalist at the National Chemistry Olympiad held at Loyola college Chicago. Hay went to Iceland as a part of an educational trip and Scholastic bowl nationals in Atlanta in his senior year.

Senior Mathlete Scholarship

National Honor Society Scholarship

Michael O'Connell Scholarship

Arbor Park James Upchurch Award

Top 10 

Illinois State Scholar

AP Scholar with Distinction

SSC All-Academic/Activity

SSC All-Academic/Athletic

Titan Achiever

Challenge Curriculum

He had a great relationship with all his teachers especially Dr. Birrel, Mr. Barcena, Mr. Uniek, Ms. Baftiri, Mr. and Mrs. Osborne, and Mr. Rucinski etc.  It was Dr. Birrel who introduced him to the world of physics. He and a group of chosen students would go to Argonne national laboratory every month to conduct experiments under Dr. Birrel’s guidance.

Jay also worked with Dr. Lisa Goelz assisting her during 2 summers to collect data for  a Deep brain stimulations research for Parkinson’s disease  and he was cited for the published article.

https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s00221-019-05636-6?author_access_token=4UcGZ0kHOpvnXLDv-4oHFfe4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY6av_zVgp5C7oLB1gKh2cr9A8fua-QEjcHoyDYtSkQ6YGePV6K1NCOs-OP4HSQJAZdx8tE5Uww1iRlzMOiqgImdnJb0olrHgrao0a1AWo0TmQ%3D%3D

 

in his junior and senior year in high school Jay stepped up as a leader and initiated many environment friendly projects and also started the high school’s first boy’s volleyball team. Incidently he also scored the first point for the team in the history of TPHS’s boy’s volleyball

history.

 

Needless to say we are proud of our boy for everything he has initiated, participated and achieved in his young life. Also, this is just the beginning, who knows what the future holds. Love you son to infinity and back.