Irish student in Paris makes the grade with Harvard scholarship

WHILE EVA Harvey’s friends from Scoil Mhuire in Cork were cramming for Leaving Cert exams last night, the 18-year-old Irish woman…

WHILE EVA Harvey’s friends from Scoil Mhuire in Cork were cramming for Leaving Cert exams last night, the 18-year-old Irish woman put on her favourite blue dress and, accompanied by her parents Dan and Mary, went to the École Active Bilangue in Paris’ 15th district to receive an award for highest achievement in her class of 50 international baccalaureate students.

Eva was the only student from the international school to gain entrance to Harvard University, although two have been accepted by Princeton and one at Yale.

To make a happy event even happier, the student’s father Dan yesterday celebrated his 50th birthday. At the cafe where we met, he glowed as he pulled Eva’s acceptance letters from Harvard – e-mail and snail mail versions and a certificate – from a folder.

The acceptance letter notes that Eva Harvey was selected among 29,000 applicants, and offered a scholarship to help defray the $50,000 annual fees. Harvard now charges a maximum of 10 per cent of parents’ income, and uses the university’s generous endowments to make up the rest. “The philosophy is that no one who gets in should be prevented from attending because of money,” says Eva.

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Had Comdt Dan Harvey of the Irish Defence Forces not been deployed to the headquarters of the EUfor mission to Chad at Montvalérien, outside Paris, in the autumn of 2007, Eva would be sitting her Leaving this week, and she probably would not have applied to Harvard. The large number of US students at her Paris school alerted her to the possibility.

“I’m making phone calls and sending e-mails to my friends in Cork. I should be there,” said the student, who will receive her results next month.

Eva’s mother Mary hesitated to uproot her three daughters and son and transfer them to French schools three months after classes started in 2007. A primary school teacher who holds a doctorate in education, Ms Harvey researched schools in Paris before settling on the École Active Bilangue.

Eva had to adapt quickly to the international baccalaureate programme. “It’s more like college because you concentrate on particular subjects,” she explains. “You don’t get a lot of homework, but you’re assigned 4,000-word essays to prepare you for writing college papers.

“We had to choose topics ourselves whereas in Ireland the assignments are more specific. If you’re motivated, it’s very good.”

Eva had studied French for her Junior Cert and spent a month of her transition year with a French family. She was admitted to Harvard on the strength of 12 As on her Junior Cert, high scores on the US Scolastic Aptitude Test and a two-hour interview in Paris.

She will not know until August whether her applications to Trinity College Dublin and University College Cork were successful. She has also been accepted by Manchester University and in the US by Wellesley, Vassar, Middlebury and Mount Holyoke.

A US liberal arts degree will enable Eva to continue studying history, English and French, rather than going directly into medical school as she would have done in Ireland or Britain.

She intends to major in neurobiology, and hopes to become a cardiologist or neurologist. “I’m interested in science, but I want contact with people. Becoming a doctor will allow me to mix science with the . . . human, caring aspect.”