VTHS student accepted to Princeton

VERNON — Sarah McGuire is proof that birthday wishes can come true. While most little girls might wish for a puppy or pony when they blow out the candles on their birthday cakes, Sarah has had only one desire. For every birthday since she was 10, she has closed her eyes, blown out the candles and made a wish to go to Princeton University.

Last month, she received the letter she had been dreaming of telling her she has been accepted to Princeton for the upcoming Fall term.

“I was so surprised I had to read it five times,” said McGuire, a senior at Vernon Township High School. “I had to keep looking at it because I couldn’t believe it actually happened!”

She will major in biological and chemical engineering (BCE).

McGuire was not only interested in Princeton for the usual academic reasons. She is third in her graduating class, Concert Mistress in her high school orchestra where she plays violin, and a member of numerous honor societies: the National Honor Society, National Spanish Honor Society, Tri-M Honor Society, History Honor Society and Science Honor Society.

She is obviously an excellent and well-rounded student. But she also has a bit of the Garden State’s Ivy League institution in her blood. Her great-grandfather, Harold Sprout, was a professor of politics in its graduate school and a scholar of international relations there from 1931 until his retirement in 1969. Her great-grandmother, who lived to be 100 years old, had a master’s degree in geography and was a partner with her husband in his work as research associate and author at the Princeton Center for International Studies, where they co-authored nine books. Each year Princeton University, bestows the distinguished Harold and Margaret Sprout Award on a book in the field of international environmental problems in honor of two people they call “pioneers in the field.”

McGuire remembers visiting her great-grandmother frequently in Princeton, and has a small catalogue of photos of herself as a child wearing Princeton sweatshirts, in different sizes, as she grew. She said she was really inspired by her great-grandmother, who was a member and president of the Princeton area League of Women Voters in the mid-40s, member of the State Foreign Policy Commission, the Health Commission and was a strong advocate for school integration.

Sarah has followed her great-grandmother’s example of community service, serving this year as Lieutenant Governor of the Key Club of New Jersey, a service program for high school students sponsored by the Kiwanis Club. She also hgas been a member of the VTHS orchestra for four years, the Chamber Orchestra for three years, soccer for three years, Model UN, Academic Decathlon, her church’s Antioch group, and has volunteered at St. Clare’s hospital in Denville.