Focus on Graduation

Jewish Press

May, 2007

 Hillel’s eighth grade students are excited to be moving on to the next phase in their educational career, and a bit sad about leaving what has been their second home for so many years.  “I feel happy about what I’m leaving,” said Jonathan Schonwetter, who, although only a student at Hillel for one year, had a wonderful experience, “and sad about what I’m losing.”  Others expressed similar mixed feelings about leaving Hillel, calling it “bittersweet.”   Shira Wasser felt that Hillel has given her “confidence in who I am,” which will make “the transition to high school easier.”  All the students agreed that they felt prepared to face the future, both academically and socially.

 Hillel graduating students chose the following high schools: Taylor Allen, Brett Doliner, Ari Feinstein, Glen Kussner, Phillip Marcadis, Katie Reisman, and Shira Wasser will be attending Tampa Preparatory School.  Dawson Friedland and Kevin Temmer will attend Land-O-Lakes High School IB Program.  Eddie Samuels, Rebecca Wolf, and Jonathan Schonwetter will attend Hillsborough High School’s IB program. Sasha Dominguez will attend Academy of the Holy Names.  Ben Katz will attend Gaither High School.  Shaina Linsky will attend Plant High School.  Mathew Haber, Lauren Saady-Saxe, and Marina Millison will attend CDS Prep School. Ashely Fryer will attend Academy at the Lakes. Alyssa Puretz will attend Harrison School of the Arts in Lakeland, and David Goldman will attend Freedom High School.

 This is also an exciting time for Hillel’s alumni students, the class of 2003, who are now graduating high school and moving on to college.  We decided to revisit these students to find out their future plans.  A number of students are going out of state, attending schools such as Harvard University, George Washington University, Emory University, Dartmouth College, and University of Pennsylvania. Others chose to stay in Florida and will attend the University of Florida, University of Central Florida, University of Miami, Florida State University, and University of South Florida.  Ilana Goldenberg, a Hillel alum, discussed how competitive Florida state universities have become: “To be considered by UF you need to have taken a large number of advanced placement classes, have a very high GPA and SAT test scores, in addition to participating in extra curricular activities. It is similar in a number of Florida’s other state schools. I know many parents, like my own, who want their children to stay in Florida for their undergraduate studies, and the competition for the schools is becoming stiffer every year.”

 We wish good luck to all of Hillel’s graduating students.