How I Got to Wellesley

This article originally appeared in the spring 2018 issue of Wellesley magazine and was written by Catherine O’Neill Grace.

For Silvia Yu ’21, it was love at first sight. As a middle schooler, Yu, who grew up in Boston’s Chinatown, rode the commuter rail out to Wellesley. She was with a student from the College who was mentoring her in an after-school program called Chinatown Big Sib Little Sib. The pair walked up to campus through the Vil. To this day, Yu recalls her amazement as she explored the Margaret C. Ferguson Greenhouses and the Science Center.

“I was fascinated by the diversity of plants and their individual environments, by how all the plants were able to survive together even though they were all different,” she says. “And I loved the way the Science Center looked—one building built around another, similar to a hug.”

A diversity of paths leads students to Wellesley—a grandmother’s memory, a website visit, a college-fair encounter, a high-school counselor’s advice, an alumna’s encouragement, even a simple Google search.

Read the rest of Yu’s story and the stories of seven other student journeys on the Wellesley magazine website.

Photo: Emily Pearson ’20, Olivia Postel ’21, Dayna De La Cruz ’21, and Saanthia Vivekanand Bulchandani ’21