Tacoma School of the Arts senior Grace Oberhofer really, really, really wants into Harvard University. Getting in, she says, “means the world to me.”
But she hasn’t been accepted, yet. And she couldn’t wait to make her case – in a very public way.
Oberhofer wrote a catchy tune with her plea and posted it on YouTube last weekend. It’s gone viral, and she’s fetched television and media coverage across the nation.
Oberhofer already received acceptance letters from six of 12 schools to which she applied, including Brandeis and Duke universities.
They’re all great schools, she said, but her heart belongs to Harvard. The Cambridge, Mass.-based university notified her a couple of weeks ago that she was on a waiting list.
She made her video wearing a pair of glasses she got on a trip to China with SOTA, and she created an “over the top” character for it because she thought it was fun.
“For those who have gone through the stressful college process, I hope this provides some comic relief,” she said Thursday.
Will her YouTube sensation – which had drawn more than 27,000 hits as of Thursday – help or hinder her chances?
“I have no idea,” she said.
Her mother, Jill Goodman, said the combination of music- and lyric-writing skill, singing ability and sense of humor are all rolled into one impressive package in the video.
“This is who Grace is,” Goodman said.
MORE ONLINE
To hear more from Grace Oberhofer, learn about her family’s Harvard connections, read her lyrics and link to her YouTube video, go to our Word on the Street blog at blog.thenewstribune.com/street.
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