Schools

Off to Harvard, With Help From His Friends

Chan Kang turns tough circumstances into path to success.

The path from high school to Harvard may be straightforward for some, but not for Chan Kang.

The Walt Whitman senior has turned his travails and talent into a full scholarship to Harvard University.

Kang, who is 20, came to the United States three years ago, dispatched by his mother to live with his father while he finished studies at Whitman. But that plan ended when his father soon decided to return to South Korea, leaving his son to fend for himself.

 From that point, Kang bounced around, moving from one rental to another, at the mercy of other people's decisions, until the family of a fellow marching band member took him in this year.

He became a naturalized American citizen along the way while filling his days with rigorous academic challenges. Weekends, when he wasn't with the marching band as a member of the pit crew or sharpening his top mathlete skills, was when he caught up on his sleep.

As a sophomore, he finished in first place in the Suffolk County mathletes competition. And this year, the team finished first again in the county competition.

Friends helped him when he needed his bicycle repaired or help sorting out the myriad obligations of a teenager figuring out his life. Whitman professionals made sure he got what he needed to success academically and encouraged him to apply to Ivy League schools.  

Speaking little to no English when he arrived, he rose to fifth spot academically in his graduating class. 

"Sometimes I was scared but I could do it if I knew it was something I had to do," he said.

He described waiting to hear whether he had been accepted to Harvard. Sitting at a computer, he nervously waited for the promised e-mail at a set time. "It was supposed to come in at 6 p.m.," he said. "but it was about 6:37," he said, before he got the congratulatory message. He plans to major in math and music at Harvard, which gave him a full scholarship.

Kang said he knew he had two routes in his life, one that meant giving in to his tough circumstances or the other that gave him what he knew he needed.

He chose success.


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