Joseph Feffer was already an accomplished student in and out of the classroom at State College Area High School who had chosen Harvard as his college destination over M.I.T.
Now he’s been awarded one of the highest honors a high school student can receive.
Feffer was named a 2017 U.S. Presidential Scholar, one of just 161 out of about 4 million high school seniors nationwide to receive the honor.
‘I try not to think about it that way,’ Feffer said when asked about being part of such an exclusive group. ‘You can sort of get your head in the clouds when you think about that. I just like thinking of it as appreciating the hard work that I’ve put in so far, being motivation for me to go on and do more stuff in the future.’
Established in 1964, the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program honors the nation’s most distinguished graduating high school seniors. A commission selected one male student and one female student from each state, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and families of U.S. citizens living abroad. The commission also selected 15 students at large, 20 students for exceptional talent in the visual and performing arts, and 20 students for their ability in career and technical education fields.
Feffer was one of Pennsylvania’s two state selections. It’s a rare honor, but Feffer also isn’t the first State High student to receive it. In 2014, Alicia Lai was a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. Before that, Feffer’s sister Danielle, was a Presidential Scholar in 2012.
‘It means a lot to me,’ Feffer said. ‘I was sort of shooting for it when I took the ACT. I knew I would need to score high to get this award. My sister actually won it when she graduated from high school in 2012. It was sort of a barometer for me to try to catch up to her. So doing so really makes me happy.’
About 4,000 seniors were invited to apply to the program based on the top 20 SAT or ACT scores in each state and jurisdiction, as well as from other nominations. In February, Feffer applied, submitting six required essays along with self-assessments and transcripts. Applicants were evaluated on several criteria and 800 semifinalists were selected in mid-April. Feffer learned during the first week in May that he was among those to receive the honor.
He thought when word came it would be early in the day, so as he left track and field practice with his brother, Nick (who is headed to Dartmouth in the fall), that afternoon he was taken by surprise when he checked his email.
‘I was just leaving track practice when I took my phone out and I saw an email that said ‘Congratulations’ and I started freaking out,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t expecting it. It was 4 or 5 p.m. and I just thought it would be too late to receive anything. I was in the car with my brother and we just started celebrating.’
Feffer, and his brother, were both members of the Little Lions’ state championship track team last year and will be competing at the PIAA Championships again this weekend. He said track has helped him succeed academically in a number of ways.
It’s given him a support system of friends who push him to succeed while keeping him grounded, he said. And it’s taught him lessons that carry over to the classroom.
‘There’s that notion that you can try as hard as you do but you might not do as well as you want to,’ Feffer said. ‘That motivation is always really good in the classroom because I know that some things might not go my way even if I’m trying really hard, and I’m allowed to accept that result and try to move on in the future. I don’t get too bogged down about disappointing test scores or anything like that.’
While he wasn’t recruited to run track at Harvard, he said he’ll consider walking on once he gets there. But his focus is on academics.
Feffer said he was accepted to Harvard, where his sister graduated in life sciences and developmental biology, and knew the only other school he would consider would be M.I.T., where his brother Michael is a computer science major.
‘They were kind of fighting to make me go to their schools,’ Feffer said with a laugh.
He was accepted to M.I.T. as well and after visiting both schools in April felt more at home at Harvard. He’s considering the applied mathematics major with an interest in economics. Feffer knows his path could take any number of directions, but for now his eye is on a future Ph.D. then a position as a university researcher and faculty member.
Feffer has been involved with economics research at Penn State during his high school career, and he’s also found joy in teaching. He tutors students and teaches in the Mathcounts program at State College Area middle schools.
‘I enjoy working with kids who are interested in what I’m interested in,’ he said. ‘I also just like research. I think finding something new is exciting.’
His interests and activities at State High have been varied. In addition to being a runner in the 400, 800 and 4X800 on the track team, he was vice president of the high school’s forensics team, which includes speech, debate and mock trial. He is captain of the Quiz Bowl team and a member of Future Business Leaders of America.
In April, Feffer was one of just eight students nationwide selected to represent the United States this summer at the 15th International Linguistics Olympiad. He was chosen by the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO) after an open round of tests in which more than 1,500 students competed. He was then picked for the final team of eight to compete in Dublin after his performance on tests in an invitational round.
‘I was completely shocked,’ he said. ‘I took the test for that in March and thought there’s no way I’m in the top eight. I thought I did well but I did not think I was top eight in the country. I had to make sure it was the right Joseph and not some other kid.’
And while Feffer credits math and science teachers and Jen Rand in Learning Enrichment for helping guide what he wants to study and his academic pursuits, it was a social studies teacher who Feffer wrote about it in one of his essays for the Presidential Scholar program.
Andy Merritt, Feffer said, taught him important lessons he couldn’t get from a text book.
‘Mr. Merritt really encourages his students to be kind to each other and just to be good people and I think that’s sort of missing a lot in today’s world,’ he said. ‘When I started taking his class and he gives these weekly speeches on being kind to someone who’s alone, sitting with people in the lunchroom if they seem like they need friends, that impacted me and I thought that was more important than any lesson I had learned out of a math or science text book.’
Feffer will receive the Presidential Scholar Medallion in June at a national recognition program in Washington, D.C.
State College Area High School U.S. Presidential Scholar Recipients:
2017 – Joseph Feffer
2014 – Alicia Lai
2012 – Danielle Feffer
2010 – Cody Wild
1991 – Stephen Barry
1984 – Thomas Liu
1981 – Judith Heicklen
