Josiah Kollmeyer

Josiah Kollmeyer

Written by Imogen Kane

Arriving as a freshman honors student to Hillsdale almost a week before the other students, on a muggy and still afternoon, a party was hosted at what I would later learn was the West Bank, the quintessential off campus house. My sole friend (at the time) and I looked around nervously at the clusters of obviously good friends, laughing and catching up on summer stories. The moment we entered the door, though, I remember one figure leaping over, cutting through the crowds of people, to heartily shake hands and introduce himself. He is forever holding open doors, saying hello, or asking wilting freshmen how a Jackson paper is going: this is Josiah Kollmeyer.

Josiah started seriously considering Hillsdale after going on Dr. Whalen’s trip to England,  “heaven on earth.” Seeing the level of learning expected from the students and being given the opportunity to wrestle with great questions convinced him that he needed to attend Hillsdale College. “As far as high school educations go, I got a decent one, but before that trip I had never tried to interact with great ideas like we do here—those sorts of questions I later learned are amazingly asked here all the time.”

When he finally visited, both students and faculty impressed him, but even more so, he noticed an interesting juxtaposition: “I went to a Christian elementary school where there was a strong element of character that I loved and appreciated, but academically it was not particularly strong. I was fairly separated from my peers in that way. My high school was the flip flop—it had good academics, particularly in math, but it lacked the character. Here at Hillsdale we have the combination; we have both the high level and rigorous academics and also such a strong element of virtue among the student body. And the professors, too, for that matter.”

Josiah recently made school wide news when he scored a perfect score on his LSAT, setting his path straight towards law school.  After reading The Good News as a 13 year old, Josiah, originally from Michigan, felt convicted to fight against human trafficking in some capacity, as a lawyer it soon turned out. So, he is double majoring in Math and History, and as a senior has been accepted to some of the most prestigious law schools in the nation: Duke University, University of Michigan, Harvard University, and University of Chicago. Josiah credits Hillsdale with much of his success. “Ironically enough, Hillsdale has prepared me very well for a career, even though that’s not its focus; it’s really put me in a good position.” Good enough, apparently, to get a perfect score on the LSAT.

I asked him why, considering his aptitude for math and sciences, he didn’t go to a high level state school to get a degree. The answer was telling: Hillsdale does such a great job because it integrates so many different academic areas, providing an informative, encompassing liberal arts education. According to Josiah, “Specialization is for insects. Integrated learning is for men.” But more than just learning to read and write logically, skills a lawyer obviously needs to be able to do well, learning about men such as William Wilberforce, and others who have fought against slavery before, has enabled him to recognize even more the evil of trafficking, and how great a priority should be placed on preventing it.

Josiah summed up what’s best about Hillsdale in his final sentences of our interview: “If anyone is interested in big ideas and in discussing them with others who care—who honestly care—that their ideas have consequences and are striving to find the best ones, I know of no place that would be better for their education than here. And I could improve the sentence structure of that last phrase if you want…”


Imogen Kane is a freshman at Hillsdale College, where she works as a student HOST and participates in an assortment of activities around campus. She is from Portland, Oregon, and has plans to major in Biology and minor in French. Imogen is a member of the Hillsdale College Honors Program.