Less than two weeks before the last day of school, Brown County High School valedictorian Abe Oliver was in cool-down mode.
Perched on a stool in the cafeteria, he talked about his recent trip to the Intel International Science Fair — the second time in his high school career. This year’s project was on the Google Deepmind AlphaZero algorithm.
After graduating at the top of his class on June 8, he now has a little free time before heading to California, “trying to enjoy being here before my life kind of upends next September,” he said.
Oliver was accepted into Stanford University. He plans to double-major in math and computer science with a possible minor in physics.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Stanford is the place for him because it’s where people who love to learn congregate, he said.
“Stanford was never looking for the perfect SATs, the perfect ACTs, the valedictorians, but they were looking for kids who loved learning. That was the culture they wanted to create,” he said.
“It’s not a competitive school. People aren’t fighting over trying to get the better grade. It’s very collaborative, because everyone is focused on the same thing, which is learning the most they can and growing. I am positive that is what they do there and why I love it there.”
Oliver discovered he liked computer science in seventh grade, and he began researching the best colleges to study it. He narrowed down his choices to Carnegie Mellon or Stanford, then visited Stanford his sophomore year.
“I loved it from that moment, and I knew that moment that’s where I wanted to go,” he said.
He visited again during fall break of this senior year to stay with a friend. He had already written his essays for his application, but trashed them when he returned.
“I realized how important it was to me and I had a new, invigorated energy,” he said.
He considers getting into Stanford his biggest accomplishment so far, along with going to the international science fair twice and becoming an Eagle Scout.
On May 29, Oliver also became one of four students statewide named to the Governor’s STEM Team. He was chosen for the “T,” which is technology. The honor came with a $1,000 scholarship.
Despite all this, Oliver did not expect to be named valedictorian of his class.
“I was not assuming anything. I know a lot of the kids in my class work really hard, especially junior year and this first semester, so I knew it could have gone any direction,” he said. “I am happy that I came out with that, but you can never assume anything.”
He said he put in a lot of “effort and grit” to earn the top rank in his class: a lot of homework, studying and taking advanced courses.
“For the last year and a half, my math class at IU, I pretty much spent all day every Sunday working on the homework for Monday or Tuesday. I would spend sometimes 10 hours on an assignment and really work as hard as I could on a lot of those. I know when I had my AP Physics, AP Chemistry, those took a lot of work,” he said.
“We talk a lot about sport accomplishments, but these are the times when academic accomplishments really shine, and I like to see that me and my fellow, really hard-working academics get to have our moment in the spotlight.”
Even when his assignments are done, Oliver’s analytical mind keeps working.
“I’ll just be driving to Bloomington or something, I’ll be thinking about what does this physics concept actually mean? I think sometimes philosophically about them. … I don’t study in a sense where I do practice problems, but I study a lot by just thinking about things,” he said.
He credits ABC-Stewart Elementary School in Columbus, where he attended the majority of his elementary school career, for inspiring his love of learning.
“The whole environment there is love what you do and learn what you want. … Whatever you wanted to study, you could study. … That’s why I feel so invested in what I do. It’s the love of learning.”
When he was not taking college courses, preparing for science fairs or studying, Oliver served as president of Brown County High School’s student council and as vice president of the Dance Marathon fundraiser.
He also played tennis all four years and ran track this spring semester, and was in the high school’s theater program his first two years.
Through community service with the National Honor Society, Oliver volunteered with God’s Grace, Mother’s Cupboard, Habitat for Humanity and worked some Brown County YMCA races.
He also helped teach coding to Brown County Junior High School students involved in Brain Games or in the after-school club Girls Who Code.
Where does he see himself in five years? As a Stanford University graduate working on obtaining his master’s degree.
At first, he wanted to do academic research, since he’s been doing that for science fairs, but recently, that plan has changed.
“I’m not quite sure the lab life is for me. … I honestly need stress. Being a lab researcher doesn’t have the stress. I need more people interaction, so I’m trying to figure out where that is actually going to take me,” he said.
“There is some really interesting work going on to use math, machine learning to solve problems like gerrymandering. I’ve looked at the NSA (National Security Agency) to do maybe math and computer science for the intelligence community. … I want the call at 3 a.m. that ‘the story just leaked; we need damage control.’ I want the call that ‘the system is down; we’re hacked.’ I need to have some kind of real excitement in my life.”
Oliver said he hasn’t ruled out running for political office, and if anything, he would like to be a senator. “I could see myself there. I think it’s more realistic to see me as more of a policy adviser,” he said.
“If I got to the point in which I could run a campaign on the values I really thought were important and not what the money people said were important, then maybe it’s a possibility.”
His advice for incoming freshmen is to do as much as possible in high school, like play a sport, perform in a play or get involved with student council.
“The parts of school that aren’t academic-based necessarily are the things I had the most fun with. I always tell my brother this, if you’re ever offered to go on some kind of trip that takes you to a hotel … those are the best memories you make,” he said.
“Definitely do as much as you can, not only because it looks good on your resume, but because that’s where my sense of fulfillment came from high school. And a lot of my best friends came through those kinds of memories.”
