NEW HAVEN >> Ade Ben-Salahuddin grew up around the sound of gunshots in New Haven, but when given the chance to attend a number of Ivy League schools, he decided to stay.
Ben-Salahuddin will attend Yale University this fall, turning down the likes of Princeton and Columbia in the process.
A senior at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School, Ben-Salahuddin has maintained a 4.72 grade point average throughout high school and is an active jazz trumpet player. He was accepted to Princeton, Brown, Columbia, Wesleyan, Yale, Tuskegee, Amherst College, Connecticut College and the University of Connecticut.
“He’s my hero,” said Tariq Ben-Salahuddin, Ade Ben-Salahuddin’s father.
Tariq said his son has managed to always make the right decisions in a society where there are many opportunities for him to do the wrong thing.
“Personally,” Abe said, “it’s always been me wanting to just learn more and always being driven and nurtured to explore different options and become immersed in a lot of different cultures, be as open to the world as possible, while still retaining a focus on: you have to educate yourself.”
A Wesleyan graduate, Tariq Ben-Salahuddin said he and his wife have been in competition to see which school Ade Ben-Salahuddin would attend. His wife is a Yale graduate.
While Wesleyan’s acceptance letter arrived first, Tariq Ben-Salahuddin said he knew the game was over once the letter from Yale arrived.
Abe Ben-Salahuddin said when he began exploring colleges, he looked for a school that would allow him to pursue both music and biology. He said many of the Ivy Leagues presented themselves as “very strong candidates,” and that he considers the schools the “pinnacles of formal education.”
The senior visited Princeton and UConn before being won over by Yale’s Bulldog Days program in April — a three-day program offered to admitted Yale students to provide a sense of what it’s like to be a “Yalie.” The program pairs potential students with a student host and includes tours, meetings with undergraduate organizations and free time to explore downtown.
“It was just a really fun experience seeing New Haven from the perspective of a college student,” Ben-Salahuddin said. “Bulldog drove home that sense of community among Yale students.” As a city student, Ben-Salahuddin said he frequented downtown cafes with friends and noticed there was a lot to do, but only if you were college-aged. The fact that there was less to do for younger students initially was “off-putting” for Ben-Salahuddin.
“I actually couldn’t really picture myself staying here for another four years,” he said. “I said I was going to drive myself insane at some point.”
But after getting a taste of what the city feels like for a Yale student, and how inspired and inspiring the students are, Ben-Salahuddin’s perspective changed.
“A lot of people who go to the school are really passionate about what they want to learn and are trying to learn a lot of things at the same time, and are very active in the community,” he said. “A lot of really driven people, and I like to be around that sort of crowd because it pushes everybody toward their ultimate goals, whatever those might be.”
And in good company he’ll be.
Kwasi Enin, a Long Island teenager who was accepted to all eight Ivy League schools, also will be attending Yale this fall.
Ben-Salahuddin said he ran into Enin during a visit to Princeton and looks forward to having him as a colleague.
For youths coming behind him, Ben-Salahuddin offered a lesson on “self-worth” and suggested finding something positive for oneself and the community.
“Reject what the media perception of you is; if you continue to count that as a factor in how you judge and how you value yourself, then you’re not going to succeed in any substantial way,” he said.
It’s important to find something that’s both positive for you and for the community, and “to be role models for the generations that come after you,” he said.
As for the high school experience in New Haven, Ben-Salahuddin said it is what you make of it.
“The school system in general, the resources are there. As to how efficiently they’re being used, I cannot really say,” he said.
“I would stress to both parties, teachers and students, to really embrace the moment, seize every learning moment that you have,” he said.
Since 2010, the district’s dropout rate has fallen from 27.3 percent to 20.7 percent and the four-year graduation rate has increased from 62.5 percent to 71.4 percent. Also, the percentage of students enrolled in their first year of college has increased by 2 percentage points from 62 percent in 2010 to 64 percent in 2012. Only about half of the district’s graduates make it to the second year of college.
Ben-Salahuddin said there are a lot of resources and programs for students in the city but many are confined to specific schools. Ideally, he said, he would like to see more citywide programs for youth.
Ben-Salahuddin listed Nelson Mandela and South African trumpet player Hugh Masekela as role models because of their activism, and said his passion for science came from no particular scientist, but from the nature of the topic itself. While he is unsure of his exact focus of study, his eyes are set on evolutionary studies or possibly biomedical engineering.
As for whether or not Ben-Salahuddin will remain in New Haven post-college graduation, the aspiring researcher said it’s likely he will, but not forever.
“I’ve said to myself, well if you’ve made the commitment so far, and you’re already at Yale; Yale is one of the best research institutions in the country, if not the entire world so you shouldn’t close yourself off to it,” he said. “If opportunities do arise, I will certainly at least be open to it, though I would at some point want to expand beyond New Haven.”
h/t – nhregister
