next year’s Peer Educators Announced 20 of 96 Applicants Selected
By Bo Ra Kim ’10
News Staff Writer
On Thursday, April 17th, the directors of Choate’s Peer Educator program, Charlotte Davidson and Jim Yanelli, e-mailed all 96 fourth and fifth form applicants of their acceptance decisions. 20 applicants were accepted to join the six returning Peer Educators to form the 2008-2009 Peer Educator group.
Peer Educators is a leadership program designed to educate the Choate student body about health issues such as STDs, drugs, alcohol, depression, stress, sleep, nutrition, eating disorders, peer pressure, and other pressing topics. Mr. Yanelli and Mrs. Davidson coordinate the program, but the peer educators are the ones who run the activities such as the Health Fair earlier this year and give dorm-to-dorm presentations.
“I think that the best thing about the peer educator program is that it’s run by students. We all know that teachers know what’s best and everything and they have a lot of experience, but sometimes it’s nice to hear it from your peers who have done their research and know what’s going on. I know that there are still misconceptions out there so it’s good to be able to clear those up,” summarized Chris Bakes ’10, a new 2008-2009 peer educator.
Mrs. Davidson agreed with Bakes by saying, “Peers are really capable with training to talk to peers about a whole range of issues. And the kids listen to their peers in ways that they might not listen to adults. It’s another informal structure of this school where kids can have access to some information. It’s being helpful to fellow students.”
“Knowing that you’re helping others and knowing that you’re in need is the best aspect of the program for me,” explained Erin Ellis ’10, a new 2008-2009 peer educator.
Caroline Marcks ’10, an applicant, put it simply, “It’s just a more productive and fun way for the students to learn!”
There were four steps in the application process. The first step was completing the application, which consisted of five short essay questions. The second step was requesting a teacher to complete the teacher recommendation. The third step was completing a group interview. These group interviews consisted of six to eight applicants in a group discussion facilitated by either Mrs. Davidson or Mr. Yanelli. The fourth step was having an individual interview with one or two current peer educators. The individual interview took place on April 13th.
“I thought it was good to have the written, the group, and the individual interview because then you see the applicants in three different lights.” Said Marcks.
The junior applicants who were selected to join next year’s group are Nikki Collins ’09, Taylor Elser ’09, Carly Evans ’09, Vishal Khandheria ’09, Max Mastrella ’09, Maggie Nixon ’09, Nicolle Perry ’09, Dillon Wuerth ’09, Michael Yowan ’09, and Liying Zhao ’09.
The sophomore applicants chosen are Chris Bakes ’10, Jeff Bowman ’10, Angelica Calabrese ’10, Erin Ellis ’10, Viraj Gandhi ’10, Stephen Nason ’10, Molly O’Rourke ’10, Geoff Van ’10, Katie Walsh ’10, and Gaby Whitehouse ’10.
Because Peer Educators consist of juniors and seniors, there are six current juniors who served as Peer Educators this past year. These six Peer Educators who will continue their positions next year are Jason Cohen ’09, Tom Guo ’09, Suril Kantaria ’09, Maggie Remsen ’09, Charlie Rosenberg ’09, and Monica Yang ’09.
“I think it’s a wonderful group. There are people from all corners of the campus, day students, boarders, people with different interests, and other things. I think that we will work very well together,” said Bakes.
“Most of them deserved [to become peer educators]. Some of them, even though they are great people and know what Peer Educators is about, might have some difficulties in being the best peer educators. On the outside, some of them come off as shy people, and I don’t think that’s necessarily what you would want in a Peer Educator.” Julienne Knowles-Garcia ’10, an applicant, stated.
“I think they selected a really good group. I’m really excited about it,” said Ellis.
This year’s application process was a lot more competitive than the past years’. The number of students applying for the program increased drastically this year, coming to a total of 96 applicants. The acceptance rate this year was 21 percent.
“This year we had an extraordinary number of applicants. Particularly the fourth formers had a lot of enthusiasm for the program.” Said Mr. Yanelli.
“The overwhelming numbers of applicants from our class goes to show how much leadership there is in our class,” stated Bakes.
The program coordinators originally planned to accept 16 students, but with the overwhelming number of good candidates, the heads decided to select 20 applicants.
The applicants were carefully scanned for personality, potential for leadership characteristics, enthusiasm to learn, and other necessary characteristics for the job.
Even with the many concrete criteria for the selection of Peer Educators, Mrs. Davidson and Mr. Yanelli found the decisions difficult to make.
“There were lots of wonderful kids this year who weren’t picked simply because there was no way that we could take everybody,” said Mr. Yanelli.
The 20 new Peer Educators attended the Choate Leadership Institute on Monday, April 21st, to prepare for their new leadership positions. CLI is a full day program headed by Mary Pashley and Amy Salot that instructs and fully prepares students for taking on leadership positions on campus. All Prefects, Peer Educators, Assessment Team members, Student Council members, and Judicial Committee members must complete this training.
