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Members of the Keystone Academy Class of 2023 are diverse, yet they have so much in common, thanks to their overflowing curiosity and desire to explore the world. Bright ideas abound throughout the cohort, and an electric atmosphere envelops them wherever they go—and this has been noticed by many people outside the Keystone community.

Keystone’s latest cohort has achieved encouraging results in the early decision and early action rounds of the recent college and university application season, with several members receiving admission offers from Yale University, Brown University, University of Chicago, Wellesley College, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, and more. These results point out to the wealth, depth, and breadth of stories and insights that soon-to-be Keystone graduates tell the world.

In this edition of the Keystone Graduate Profile Series, we feature the stories of some members of the Keystone Class of 2023 who have received offers from several highly selective institutions in the United States. These students are driven and connected by a common passion for philosophy and knowledge. If you’re looking for ideas, these young brainstormers can give some inspiration.

On the Record: Budding journalist Missy Liu uses a philosophical outlook to uncover stories

As soon as Missy Liu stepped foot in the Yorkshire countryside, she extended her palms to feel the drizzle. Feeling giddy, Missy contained her euphoria and marveled at the sprawling moors under slow-moving rainclouds. She wondered: was this the vista when Emily Bront? wrote Wuthering Heights?

Yorkshire—the quaint setting of Bront?’s opus that contrasted with its theme of revenge, depiction of mental cruelty and domestic abuse, and critique of social class—was among the towns Missy visited during her two-week vacation in England in the summer of 2017. It wasn’t just an ordinary jaunt but a dream come true for the then-middle schooler, who had read many classics from the English literary canon. By seeing the Yorkshire moors, exploring the cosmopolitan city of Bath that Jane Austen called home, visiting Shakespeare’s birthplace of Stratford-upon-Avon, and arriving at many other paths in her “literary bucket list”, Missy transported herself to the glory days of English literature.

“I felt a connection to a deeper consciousness,” Missy said of her blissful experience. “It was like, ‘I am in this world, but also in the world of literature.’ And it felt I was going between these two different realities that were connected and overlapping.”

Literature, and to a large extent, humanities, has colored Missy’s imagination and informed her writing skills since childhood. As she caught up in classic English works, she perceived the realities and dilemmas that beset fictional characters, and even their authors. All the while, the girl listened to her grandmother’s stories about the struggles she and her extended family had faced before coming to Beijing several decades ago. Missy recognized her family’s collective experiences formed their history, but often thought about other people’s stories that were untold, and worse, forgotten.

“There are so many stories and struggles out there that I want to get to know better,” she said. “And journalism would give me that chance to know and help people [who are suffering].”

Missy’s intention to become a journalist bloomed in 2021 as she went deeper into philosophy and epistemology, thanks to her eleventh-grade Theory of Knowledge (TOK) course. Here, she slowly realized how a “philosophical outlook [could become] a solid foundation in journalism”. It became evident in her academic essays in other subjects in the past two years.

In the Individual Oral (IO) assessment for her eleventh-grade English Language and Literature course, Missy wrote a detailed argument about female rebellion against sexist expectations. Analyzing Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga’s debut novel Nervous Conditions and American singer Beyonce’s song “Hold Up” from her visual album Lemonade, Missy contended how such artistic texts from different generations could “inspire people to dare dream of a world free from discrimination and gender stereotypes”. Her English teacher, Jason Burroughs, noted that that assessment and her other essays showed her maturity and highlighted her “real social consciousness”. Missy considers this piece of writing to be very personal and cathartic.

Missy further tackled the theme of feminism in a 3,000-word essay comparing two historical texts about how women gained political rights during the French Revolution. In that essay she submitted for a special summer course hosted by the Duke Human Rights Center at Franklin Humanities Institute of Duke University in 2021, Missy situated the struggles of Frenchwomen in that era as an “important gateway to future female activism and the adoption of human rights ideals”. Missy received a commendation from Professor James Chappel, who said she “tri[ed] to really understand and internalize the readings … and [apply] insights into her own research”, and that she was “one of the top students in the class”.

Outside academic work, Missy sharpens her journalistic skills through the Student Media Services (SMS) club. In 2021, she was one of the hosts of SMS’s broadcast on the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2021, or COP26. Despite only reading a short piece, she still prepared for it for weeks. She and the production team often headed to the multimedia broadcasting room after school to test equipment, practice producing content, and learn other broadcast processes from their SMS adviser and Innovation Coach Eric Johnston.

As Missy takes on her “philosophical journey” to hone her writing skills, she often seeks insight from Michel Foucault, the philosopher and political activist who, for her, “sees the abstract on ideas”. She encountered his works only in 2021, during an eleventh-grade TOK class discussion on knowledge and history. Intrigued by the philosopher’s take on that topic, Missy researched more about his canon and later found herself drawn by his arguments on the intertwining between power and knowledge. During this time, she learned her college counselor Sonja Song also had the same fascination with Foucault—even her mobile phone case has a sketch portrait of the thinker.

In their counseling sessions, Ms. Song and Missy discussed their philosophical inspirations and shared readings. When Ms. Song asked Missy about her college choices, the student told her intention to study in the United States “to build up knowledge and find a way of thinking to question established beliefs”.

In mid-December 2022, Missy was admitted by Brown University to its Comparative Literature degree program. A couple of weeks later, she also received an admission offer from the University of Cambridge to its Human, Social, and Political Science program. Overjoyed by these offers, Missy decided to go for Brown, her early decision choice. She has already checked out the courses she could take and got in touch with Keystone alumni there.

Before going to the United States later in the summer, Missy is keen to continue her philosophical journey and tick off some items on another bucket list. She plans to go to France and visit the hometown of Foucault in Poitiers, and then explore the places where other postmodernist and deconstructionist French philosophers once lived.

“I thought about this trip during my winter vacation,” she said. “I want to learn something from them and see what I can connect to what I want to be. So, I think Rousseau’s residence will be great. Bourdieu would be very interesting, too. I’m thinking about them right now!”

A Stroke of Genius: Calligrapher Emily Shi writes down her way to become a changemaker

In the Secondary School building, a pair of 2.3-meter calligraphy hangs conspicuously on the pillars by the reception desk. Presented in the style of Wei Bei, a type of calligraphy that flourished in fourth-century China and is characterized by thick yet elegant strokes, the imposing artwork seems to be written by a master. But it was Emily Shi who wrote the script as part of an academic project.

From the time Emily first held the calligraphy brush at the age of 9, she has learned various styles, but Wei Bei’s grandeur and intensity captured her deeply. She delved into the history of calligraphy in China, finding out that many imperial-era female calligraphers focused on writing small, elegant, and detailed scripts. As she started out, Emily encountered many people who believed women writing calligraphy should follow a “dignified and refined” style. Even her mentor told her that girls “might lack the power to create grand elements”, although he stepped back and said, “some girls will alter this”.

Later, Emily joined several calligraphy contests with her “aggressive and masculine bent”. Facing heartbreaking losses, Emily took on a “softer and more delicate style … the kind appropriate for my gender.” When everything seemed to fall into place, Emily felt she hit yet another low: her work mimicked others to the point it appeared mechanical and “looked alien”. As she prepared for another competition, she stumbled upon her first creation: a calligraphic work whose single and coarsely written character nearly covered the entire page.

“It was me,” Emily said of that work. “At that moment, I remembered how I used to stand by the table for nights on end, writing one character over and over again. I recognized the true power in my script: the resilience to grow from criticisms. I grabbed my brush and continued writing.”

Over the past ten years, Emily honed her craft conscientiously and tried to combine different historical techniques and other art forms such as printing and painting. But why is that so? Her calligraphy teacher Pan Hao sums it up:

“Having a macroscopic view of Chinese art is one thing; but having a framework that can combine the strengths of various Chinese art is rare. When one stands on the height of history, they see farther than from the shoulders of giants.”

Emily’s hard work has paid off. Since 2016, she has won numerous gold and silver medals in national calligraphy competitions. She also represented Chinese students in the China-Japan Friendship Calligraphy Competition in 2020. Her award-winning works have also been featured in exhibitions in Japan and Macau.

At the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Emily founded the Keystone Calligraphy Club and tutored students remotely. In the following year, when she was in Grade 10, she published Calligraphy and Emotions, a booklet that served as her Personal Project product. Here, she analyzed numerous Chinese characters in extant works of historical master calligraphers Wang Xizhi, Yan Zhenqing, Su Shi, and many others to guide readers on how they could perceive the emotions in these scripts.

Alongside refining her craft, Emily has organized numerous community service projects and fundraiser activities for the Keystone Service Council. Her Individuals and Societies teacher Dorothy Mubweka remarked that Emily has “evolved from [being] a student who ‘played safe’” and become a person “who stepped out of her comfort zone with resilience and determination.”

In one charity auction, Emily donated some of her masterpieces and raised RMB 20,000 (USD 2,875) to purchase school supplies and sports equipment for a primary school for left-behind children in Xuchang in Henan province. That school was the focus of her “Fountain Initiatives” community service project that she launched in her eighth-grade year at Keystone. In this project, Emily volunteers to teach English and calligraphy to a group of students. She continued her work during the distance learning and teaching phase in 2021 and communicated with the parents of her students.

Throughout her volunteering experience, she saw the “huge educational inequalities in rural and urban areas in China” and realized that underprivileged students need more than just physical facilities and learning equipment but also emotional and psychological support.

“Left-behind children are forced to become independent,” Emily added. “Through my little but consistent intervention, I hope to provide [Xuchang children] a caring childhood and allow them to see … their limitless future and the importance of education. [Seeing] their academic and psychological growth has been one of the most rewarding events in my teenage life.”

Driven by her long-standing initiative, Emily looked into the so-called “double reduction” policy introduced in China in 2021 to ease the academic and mental burdens of homework in students and regulate after-school tutoring. She participated in the Pioneer Academics program and published a 22-page paper on the impact of the regulation based on her interviews with researchers from the Beijing Institute of Educational Sciences, private education sector professionals, and various parents.

“In China, rural education seems to be a common topic, but the reality is different when you go to rural schools,” she said. “The process of making education equitable to everyone is a long way to go and I know I have limited power in this situation. But I am willing to learn, use my resources, and attract everyone’s attention to make my voice heard and call for change.”

Emily is empowered to conduct further research on China’s rural education at Wellesley College, whose majority of programs and experts are related to education or educational development. She also received an offer from the University of Cambridge but has already decided to attend Wellesley. She particularly hopes to join the college’s Ministrare Council to seek help from its network of professionals and alumni for her fieldwork on China’s rural education.

“I am carrying not only the dream of being a calligrapher but also the hope of a tenacious young woman,” she said. “Whether standing behind a table covered with rice paper or on a podium, I know that my strength should never be hidden.

Colorful Views: Vickey Zhou turns to philosophy to see the world from different hues

In the past three years, graduating Keystone students walked off the Keystone Archway with the song “Farewell” by Qing-era musician-poet and monk Li Shutong playing in the background. On those occasions, Vickey Zhou interpreted the song with much vibrance and pensiveness.

Vickey has loved singing ever since childhood. Two years ago, she became BandLee’s lead singer when its former frontman left for the United Kingdom. In 2023, it’s her turn to put on the Keystone stole and march from the Archway. She has sung “Farewell” three times; the next one will be different.

When Vickey transferred to Keystone as a seventh-grade student in 2017, she immediately noticed an open and inclusive environment that was way different than her previous school, where she learned mainly by rote. In her new setting, Vickey camped out in the Middle School Library in her free time and explored its wide selection of titles. She chanced upon the Norwegian novel Sofies verden whose titular character got drawn into philosophy because of a simple question: “Who are you?” Intrigued by the novel’s premise, Vickey dug out some other classics, including Descartes’ Meditations. The philosopher’s line of questioning fascinated Vickey so much that she sought answers from other thinkers and tried to deconstruct knowledge by reading other classics such as Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols.

Vickey has always recognized how philosophy can be a way to understand the world, owing to her interest in Chinese philosophy, particularly the schools of thought that spread from the pre-Qin era onwards. She also previously studied the life and works of Confucius and read the classic Chinese canon. Although tons of philosophical books are dense for middle and high school students, Vickey still believes the subject is accessible, especially if one is willing to stay curious. In Grade 9, for example, she designed a website dedicated to helping young learners understand the subject. With videos and interactive pictures, the online hub made philosophical concepts reader friendly.

While Vickey carried on the habit of deconstructing knowledge, she remained active in campus activities. Aside from her BandLee performances, Vicky is also known as a capable defender in Keystone’s women’s football team. Keystone Class of 2023 member Angel Yin recalls her first meeting with Vickey on the Keystone Sports Field during a morning run in 2019. At that time, Angel was impressed by Vickey’s consistency in exercising every morning. Over the years, Angel noticed that Vickey’s perseverance was also reflected in her studies.

Vickey entered Keystone’s Diploma Programme (DP) with higher level Psychology, Economics, and Chinese Language and Literature courses. In addition, she enrolled in the Theory of Knowledge (ToK) course, which furthered her devotion to philosophy. The “bubbles of knowledge” she picked up from these courses became instrumental in her reflection of a pivotal extracurricular debate she engaged in 2019. In its topic question, “Is Confucius a philosopher?”, Vickey argued for the sage’s recognition as such, but her teacher retorted that “[his] teaching [was like] unsystematic mottos that lacked an ‘argumentative structure’ and ‘clear reasoning’.”

“It wasn’t until years later … when I realized our key disagreement lay in the definition of ‘philosophy’,” Vickey said of that occasion. “If [it] is defined as a branch of study emphasizing reason and logic, then Confucius would inevitably fail to meet this Western criterion. But why should we always follow the western definition? Perhaps there is not even an eastern definition as “philosophy” is intrinsically a western concept.”

As Vickey looked back on that pivotal debate, she also recognized the hegemony of western culture, particularly “in the contemporary discourse” where “it is almost taken for granted that ‘western’ equates with progress and modernity”. She realized that this situation has been going on in the areas of knowledge, literature, and social sciences.

“In the future, as a critical learner, I will be more aware of the power structure in the intellectual community and strive to cultivate a more inclusive and diverse environment that breaks this Eurocentric ‘knowledge bubble’.”

In her application essay to the University of Chicago (UChicago), Vickey listed the subjects she looks forward to studying. Among them is a course on colonization where she hopes to use Foucault’s theory of power-knowledge to deconstruct ideas of western supremacy. In another course titled “Gut Feelings and Fake News”, she hopes to “give a powerful punch to the concepts of rationality and irrationality in epistemology”.

While Vickey talked at length about philosophy in that application essay, she also reflected on the main prompt, “What might [the mantis shrimp] be able to see that we cannot? What are we missing?” This marine crustacean has between 12 and 16 photoreceptor cells in its eyes, which are the most complex in the animal kingdom—compared to the three humans have.p

“[That number] is an obvious metaphor for pursuing higher intellectual dimensions,” Vickey wrote, saying that colors have no metaphysical substance and only exist in our visions. She opined that colors allow humans to perceive and create. “Humans have always wished to transcend perceptive constraints to attain higher truths.”

“At UChicago, I want to be a mantis shrimp,” Vickey declared. She will soon be once she joins its philosophy program in the fall of 2023. As she looks forward to that time, Vickey fantasizes about an “educational mantis shrimp [that] wonder[s] what it is like to have human eyes”.

“After all, the dignity of experience is not determined by how big or small our space of parameters is, but what creative patterns we can create within our natural constraints,” she said.

Recall Value: Student leader Aidan Chong introduces a living time capsule for Keystone to remember

“Memories are vulnerable when [we] face the cruelty of time. As changes happen, memories will be gone along with the lapse of time and eventually become traceless.”

Aidan Chong’s audience at the Performing Arts Center fell silent while he delivered a speech in December 2021 for the Student Council presidency election. For years, he had heard many students demand many forms of change. This time, he hoped they would “think about something even more meaningful”.

“Let’s think about the constants, about what should remain in Keystone. I wish to do something special for Keystone: I want to introduce a room [where we will leave] tangible memories.”

Aidan’s high school English teacher Sandra Clark Guillotel recalled how she was touched by his speech, which, for her, wasn’t only about eloquence but also about expressing a message of “creating a community [that] showed we all share a common journey together”, which was “so heartfelt, sincere, and moving.” 

It was Aidan’s first time running for any student government position. To his surprise, he won.

“Memories leave us with the greatest impressions,” Aidan said of his speech theme, nearly a year after winning the position. He reminisced about studying during the pandemic era, especially when he, along with other ninth graders at the time, returned to Keystone in May 2020 after a two-month distance learning phase due to the outbreak.

“Memories remind us of experiences that make our relationship with friends very special,” he continued, referring to the times he bonded with friends amid the emptiness of Keystone classrooms and residential halls.

Aidan chuckled after recalling that speech, revealing that he finalized the script ten minutes before going on stage. Some days before the campaign, he had imagined being the student council president, and his nomination could give him a shot at public speaking.

“And then, it happened,” he added, “and I thought, ‘Now it’s my chance to do a lot of fun things.’”

His speech on what is now known as the Keystone Memory Room showed his incisive thoughts about transforming campus culture and not just calling for a change that would be supplanted sooner or later. This speech was also one of the many times when Aidan expressed his propensity for doing unconventional things; he would rather become an outlier who questions assumptions than a blind follower who readily accepts common sense. And so, for some people, Aidan’s eccentricity was a good match for the University of Chicago. How did he respond to this comment? He turned that into an essay topic for his application there.

“Although I do not necessarily agree with [their] assumption about UChicago, I recognize why [they] see me that way,” he wrote. “The most obvious sign is probably my defiance. I refuse to go along with a convention that fails to convince me.”

From a young age, Aidan has tried to understand how norms and protocols came to be. In primary school, for example, he wondered why he needed to be precise when doing simple morning exercises, much to the dismay of his teachers, who always put him at the back of queues so he would be kept out of sight. In a middle school history assignment that required him to write an essay about the Silk Road, Aidan channeled a camel that traveled along the route. Although his resulting article was creative at its best, Aidan still received criticism from his teacher because his style was “inappropriate to the task”. And sometime during high school, Aidan debated with his parents about his fondness for pink, which they considered “a girlish color”. He retorted: “Why is it girlish?”

Aidan’s inquisitiveness pushed him to build a system based on rationality, upon which he could draw logic to dismantle conventions. But it didn’t take that long for his self-constructed framework to break down.

“I realized it was pointless to exclude emotions because that brought me to a point when I felt my actions were meaningless,” he said. In the summer break of 2022, Aidan participated in a special seminar on philosophy led by Professor Malynne Sternstein, chair of the Fundamentals: Issues and Text program at UChicago. There, he pored over some influential works of Kant, Foucault, and Lacan, which furthered his understanding of human emotionality. At the same time, the course gave him a taste of a university-level philosophy class from an institution where his “[intellectual] defiance can reach its full potential” and his “rationality and whimsicality [be] nurtured and realized.”

Aidan proceeded in the fall semester with renewed fervor for his student council presidency. Dean of Student Life (HS) and Individuals and Societies teacher Rachel Hopkins, who is the council’s advisor, noted Aidan’s maturity despite being a first-time leader.

“[He] wanted to truly represent his peers to the best of his ability,” Ms. Hopkins added. “Students will remember him as a leader who wanted to give a platform where students truly felt their voices were heard.”

In mid-September, his team led the celebration of the Keystone Spirit Week, which they radically transformed by dedicating special activities each day to strengthen camaraderie and “capture the essence of each Keystone house”. He planned to organize more events, but the Keystone campus was closed again due to local outbreaks throughout the semester. Despite these shortcomings, Aidan’s year ended on a high note. Just before the winter break, he was admitted to the philosophy program at UChicago.

When Aidan returned to school at the end of January 2023, the Keystone Memory Room was still unfinished. Although unsure when the furniture will arrive, he is already preparing for a trial run. He hopes his centerpiece project will open before he leaves for UChicago in the summer.

“When you sit down inside the room, you’ll figure out what to leave in Keystone,” Aidan said in his campaign speech. “In a series of flashbacks, you will recollect all the happy and sad moments you went through with the school. And hence it will give you a chance to reflect upon what Keystone means to you, leaving a meaningful conclusion to your life here. In this way, Keystone will become part of our life’s journey—and our story will become Keystone’s story.”

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Special thanks to Jason Burroughs, Sandra Clark-Guillotel, Jason Chitty, Rachel Hopkins, Dorothy Mubweka, Pan Hao, Sonja Song, Angel Yin for providing information for this piece.