Hometown
Farmington, Connecticut 

Extracurriculars
Captain, Girls Water Polo; Captain, Girls Swimming & Diving; Captain, Girls Cross Country; Tour Guide, President of Pa’Lante; Marketing Director for Student Activities; Peer Mentor; Model U.N.  

Accolades
Ammidon Prize, awarded at Commencement; Founders Prize

Senior Courses
College-Level French IV; College-Level Economics; College-Level Statistics; College-Level English IV: Creative Writing; College-Level English IV: Satire; College-Level English IV: The Harlem Renaissance; College-Level Biology II: Cell Biology; College-Level History Seminar: United States Immigration/Ethnicity; Topics in Ethical Theory 

Next Year
University of Pennsylvania

 

Ask Pilar Wingle where she most likes to spend time on campus, and she will mention two precise spots: the Adirondack chairs in Rockefeller Quad and the shady grass under a Sycamore tree on the far side of the track. She associates both locations with community.

“It’s the idea of having the chairs in little circles outside,” she explains. “That is why I also like the big tree over by the track that we used as a meeting place for cross country. … It’s a place that a lot of people are drawn to.”

Drawing people together is a recurring theme in Pilar’s Loomis Chaffee experience. Throughout her time on the Island, she worked to bring people together, as the president of the Pa’lanté affinity group, as co-vice-president of the Student Council, as captain of three varsity sports in her senior year, and as an Alvord Center Global & Environmental Studies Certificate earner.

Representation also is important to Pilar. “I came from a school where there was no conversation about race and identity,” she says. “I have grown in the last four years by coming into who I am and recognizing my own identity.”

An international education program through the school provided a springboard for Pilar’s personal growth.“I went to Peru with the Alvord Center [for Global & Environmental Studies] when I was in 10th grade and felt like I belonged there in Latin America,” she reflects. “When I came back, I sought leadership in Pa’lante.”

She also saw an opportunity to further the Loomis community’s understanding of Latin America and its culture through changes in the school’s history curriculum, and last summer she helped to create a resource bank of sources on Latine culture to be used by the History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies Department. 

Loomis Chaffee’s emphasis on balance in life attracted Pilar to the school, and she was not disappointed.  “We are a school that values students who can do a lot of things well. You can be so much more than just what you are good at,” she comments. “You are supported and valued by everything you choose to do.… The school encourages you to be multidisciplinary.”

Pilar sums up her Loomis experience as a personal journey. “I’ve grown as a writer and a student in my formulation of who I am and my identity. I have a good understanding of who I am as a person and what my strengths and weaknesses are. Now I feel like I can look outward and ask, ‘How can I use college to find a way to improve the world?’”