CLT: Thank you for taking the time to talk to us, William! Tell us about your first year at Hillsdale! What are you studying?

WA: I’ve embarked on a modest foray into the Economics major, and I’ve greatly enjoyed it so far, so I intend to declare officially this coming semester. To me, Economics is the perfect balance between numbers and reasoning. You receive the opportunity to memorize abbreviations, work through calculations, and implement some of the math you must dreadfully drag through, while also marching step by step through concrete (and some less concrete) reasoning. Why does an adjustment in this factor result in this eventual outcome? What are the side effects of an increase of X within this market? 

As for extra-curriculars, I am participating as a competitor and the co-recruiting chair for the varsity collegiate Mock Trial team, which is intent on placing at the National Championship Tournament this year. I help represent the student body as a freshman representative of the Student Federation. I also participate in piano lessons and many of the spontaneous and not-so-spontaneous activities on campus such as Naval Battle, Homecoming, and SOMA worship nights.

CLT: How did taking the CLT/CLT10 help you prepare for college? 

WA: Mainly in two respects: First, it was the only standardized test I initially had access to as a homeschooler in middle school, and becoming accustomed to formatting, pacing, and strategies applicable to the CLT suite have been skills that have all translated to every test I’ve taken since. Second, it incentivized reading! The ability to read well is perhaps the most fundamentally important skill in any educational setting. As I worked through CLTs, I quickly realized that reading wasn’t just a matter of repeating words on the screen with the voice in my head in rapid succession. I needed to actually understand the reasoning behind the words and the subtle implications that the rich texts supplied so abundantly. I began reading more and more intently, and my experience in higher education has only benefitted from that investment.

CLT: That’s delightful to hear. And as part of your National Award, how did your CLT10 Scholarship benefit you as a first-year student?

WA: College, especially today, is not cheap. My Economics professors could explain the cause and effect, but my bank accounts need no lengthy explanation. I’ve learned that scholarships of any kind are always more valuable than they first seem, especially when summer brought the opportunity to work…and realize how much harder it is than I first expected to earn a living. Even a far smaller scholarship can mean the difference between a student loan lasting an additional year. I’m incredibly grateful to CLT and all the colleges who have supported the program and students like myself.

CLT: Which class from your first year at college had the greatest impact on you, and why? 

WA: I would have to say English 104, or “Great Books of the Western Tradition.” The amount Dr. Benedict Whalen grew my writing over just one semester has been surpassed only by the increase in my ability as a reader. Trust me, skimming the Iliad, Odyssey, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Dante’s Inferno and Purgatorio all for the final after meticulously annotating them all was not something I anticipated doing. It was, however, well worthwhile. 

CLT: Finally, what advice would you give to other CLT10 or CLT test-takers planning ahead for college?

WA: There’s a specific verse from Proverbs that I felt summed up my first year fairly well: “Man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). It’s vitally important to make plans (and backup plans) about where to apply, what the financial bottom line is, what courses to take, what activities to sign up for, and a hundred other things that pop up unexpectedly. However, despite the perfect plan, nothing ever works out quite like we anticipate. And that’s OK. We aren’t failures just because we didn’t get the scholarship that seemed perfect. We don’t give up on life because the school we dreamed about said no. If we’ve stewarded our responsibilities and tried our best to make sense of the colossal amount of opportunities and paths open to us, then we can be confident that the outcome will not define us.