Luscious green lawns, beautiful buildings and accomplished faculty: This is Yale University. While an Ivy League school may be the ultimate dream for many SHS students, many believe they will never get a chance to attend such a prestigious school. Nevertheless, summer programs allow high school students to explore campuses like Yale.
This summer, junior Ingrid Pan will be doing exactly this at Yale through a program called Yale Young Global Scholars (YYGS) in its Politics, Law and Economics (PLE) division.
At PLE, high school students from around the world attend seminars, workshops and lectures hosted by Yale faculty, in addition to conducting research presentations and participating in simulations. The program itself is run by the Yale Office of International Affairs and is highly selective, accepting only 600 participants from 2,400 applicants across of three divisions of the program.
According to Pan, the application was straightforward, as she had completed other, more complicated program applications just before completing the YYGS form. For a previous application for another program, Pan wrote four 1,500 word essays. By comparison, the application for YYGS was simpler, as she only had to write a few short essays and submit a resume. Pan will be attending the program from June 23 to July 6.
Pan had heard of YYGS through a family friend who recommended the program.
“I looked into it, and the program encompassed all the academic fields I was considering,” Pan said. “It's a research-based seminar about legal, political and economic ideas that [apply] history.”
Pan was also intrigued by the program’s heavy placement on the importance of “global” citizenship, which means that over half of the students in the program are international students. YYGS’s website states that last year’s session included students from each of the 50 states and 80 other countries such as Kenya and Singapore.
To get to know each other, the students created a group chat via Facebook to introduce themselves. Pan said that the conversations on the chat range from unique perspectives on the U.K. election to a student saying he will cook brigadeiros (which are a Brazilian delicacy) for everyone at Yale.
In addition to meeting a multitude of students with different ethnic backgrounds, Pan is looking forward to broadening her knowledge of current affairs. In fact, Pan even opted to take two AP history classes this year — AP US History and AP European History — instead of a science and describes her academic interests as heavily humanities-focused.
Before applying to YYGS, Pan said she had considered majoring in economics and law. She stated that she is sure YYGS will allow her to develop the research skills she will need in college.
“I think becoming well-educated on government and current affairs is important in becoming an involved citizen, and the research skills will help me in college and beyond,” Pan said.