Last spring, I spent weeks writing emails — 27 of them, to research labs, to companies and to anyone in Dallas who might give me something real to work on. I rewrote them over and over, trying to sound professional without sounding desperate, trying to make a case for why a high school student was worth someone’s time. Two people responded. Neither said yes.
I didn’t know what I had done wrong. The emails were good. The interest was genuine. I wasn’t asking for much, just a chance to contribute something, to be in the room where the real work was happening. But somewhere between sending those emails and waiting for the responses that never came, I started to understand something I hadn’t considered before.
It was that I was doing this completely alone, and I didn’t have to be.
Around the same time, I started learning about what students at other schools had access to. Hockaday has a formal summer research program that connects students to labs across Dallas before their senior year. Greenhill has a pitch night where students present business ideas to local executives and compete for real funding. Keller ISD has formal partnerships with companies like Lockheed Martin and Caterpillar, giving students structured internship pipelines across engineering, healthcare and business. Frisco ISD operates a dedicated CTE Center with over 30 industry-aligned programs built in collaboration with companies and universities. These were practical additions to the curriculum, stemming from schools recognizing that student ambition needs pathways to achieve more.
That’s not a criticism of St. Mark’s. If anything, it is an opportunity. This school has the resources, the relationships and the reputation to build something like those and do it even better than most. The foundation is already there.
College admissions have shifted in ways that make all of this matter more than it used to. Admissions officers today aren’t looking for students who are generally good at things. They want depth. They want something pursued with enough focus and consistency to set the student apart from the rest. Research, ventures, publications, specialized awards. These aren’t impressive extras anymore. They’re becoming more and more of the baseline. And building that kind of record requires more than just ambition and enthusiasm. It requires access.
What St. Mark’s already does well is real and worth preserving. The education here is serious, and the people who teach it are exceptional. What could make it stronger is not a departure from, but an extension. An alumni network where students can easily reach out. Research and internship programs with Dallas universities and companies. A more robust college counseling department that has the resources to start early enough to shape a plan rather than jam stuff together to fit a narrative. Funding for students who want to build something. These are the kinds of additions that would let students take everything they’ve developed here and actually show it to the world. I found my way eventually, but it took many emails and a long couple of months to get there. With the right infrastructure, it doesn’t have to be that hard.
