Katie Kortepeter

Why I Chose Hillsdale: Katie Kortepeter

Written by Katie Kortepeter

I love my grandpa. When I was a freshman in high school, he was already scheming to get me into an Ivy League school. “Brown or Harvard would be great,” I remember him saying. “Or you could go to Canada! The healthcare there is terrific.” One day, when I was fifteen, he made me sit on his lap and firmly explained why the one school I must never, ever apply to was Hillsdale College. “You’ll be brainwashed!” he warned. Throughout the next couple years, he periodically sent me copies of Imprimis in the mail with thoughtful annotations such as “BS” and “Nonsense!”

My immediate family’s beliefs on almost everything are diametrically opposed to Grandpa’s, as he’s quite taken with Marxist ideology, but Hillsdale wasn’t really on anyone’s radar until I started doing some research. A not-so-subconscious desire to thwart Grandpa pushed me to pore over Hillsdale’s website and attend a wonderful event in Indianapolis where Dr. Arnn spoke.

I made two visits to Hillsdale. I wasn’t totally sold the first time, because we went in winter and campus seemed hopelessly gray. Ironically, the girl who showed us around was an English and French major, which is what I am today even though I never imagined picking up French. The best part of the weekend was sitting in on Dr. Smith’s English class as they studied Doestoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. The depth of discussion in that class stuck in my mind for several years, inspiring me to read the book then and finally take a Shakespeare class with Dr. Smith this year.

A couple years later, I was invited to come up again for Scholars Weekend. The reading list for that weekend, which included portions of Aristotle, may have been daunting, but I ended up having a splendid time exploring downtown Hillsdale, discussing literature with Hillsdale students and professors, going swing dancing, and doing donuts on the ice at Lake Baw Beese. I also got to sit in on several more classes. I’d applied to eleven schools, but Hillsdale was the only one where the students were engaged and excited about what they were learning in every single class.

That Sunday, before going home, I knelt by the bed in the MacIntyre residence hall and prayed very seriously that God would provide a way for me to go to Hillsdale – and also that Grandpa wouldn’t have a heart attack when he found out. The next day, I skipped school to write my entire application for the honors program and send it in well before the deadline.

When Hillsdale came through with generous financial aid and Grandpa survived the news, I knew my prayers had been answered. And I couldn’t be happier that I read Imprimis for myself and ignored the annotations.

Katie KortepeterHailing from Indianapolis, Katie Kortepeter, ’17, is an English and French major. She frequently swing dances, speed reads Tolstoy, and practices her Chinese as a bubble tea waitress.