Embracing Opportunities
A member of the second cohort of Magis merit scholarship recipients to attend Prep, Rudy ’26 can already look back and see the tremendous ways he’s grown since he applied to Prep as an 8th grader. “They really build you up as a young man to be the man you need to be, to go out into the world and to make an impact,” he reflects. “They’re setting us up for so much more.”
For Rudy, the biggest adjustment to Prep was really a matter of time management—balancing sports practices with the increased workload that comes with all of his honors classes. At Prep, Rudy has gotten involved in everything he can: football, basketball, robotics club, guitar ensemble and band, math team, student government, and the African American cultural club. “There’s so many ways to get involved. I’ve been taking advantage of that,” says Rudy, who’s planning to launch an engineering club in the future.
As a summa cum laude student, Rudy’s also eager to seize the academic opportunities before him and meets regularly with his college counselor, Lynn Chesbro, to figure out the path ahead. “We have a really good connection,” says Rudy, who finds Chesbro’s assistance immensely helpful for achieving his goals. For example, Rudy started freshman year at Prep in Algebra I, but he decided that the next year he wanted to move up a level in the sequence in order to pursue his love of math. Prep provided him with a summer geometry course, and he was able to start sophomore year in Algebra II.
Rudy’s most transformational moment of his Prep journey so far was his service immersion experience in Florida through Urban Plunge with brother school Belen Jesuit in Miami. One of the trip’s activities included an ecological excursion to the Everglades in which students practiced seeing God in all things, including a two-minute exercise in silence in the swamp. “I think that was the most magical experience I’ve ever had,” he recalls.
Among all the things Rudy loves about Prep, the brotherhood tops them all. “The atmosphere in the building is always friendly. The bonds that I have here are just amazing,” says Rudy, who feels his own contribution to the brotherhood is serving as a bridge between different friend groups and helping to welcome kids who have had a slower start acclimating. “I know most of my class,” he says. “I know that they’re there for me. I’m there for them.”
In fact, Rudy has already discovered the secret of one of Prep’s most enduring effects on a young man’s life—the brotherhood doesn’t end after four years. “The connections you build at Prep, I already know they will last a lifetime,” Rudy concludes.