Ethel “Ellie” Hylton has always been a high achiever. Perhaps it runs in the family. As the niece of news anchor Soledad O’Brien, Hylton’s personal achievement in graduating from Harvard College with the highest GPA in her class might not come as a surprise.
“My aunt has been a friend and an inspiration since I was a little girl,” Hylton told theGrio. “I’ve enjoyed watching her career, and I admire all the success she’s had by taking risks and following her passion. It’s always fun getting together with her and the rest of my extended family!”
Hylton, who graduated this year with a degree in sociology, was honored with the Sophia Freund Prize, which is given to the Harvard student with the highest grade point average graduating summa cum laude. She was also inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society last fall.
Hylton credits the support of her parents (who also graduated from Harvard magna cum laude in 1982) with much of her ability to attain success.
Credits parents with her success
“I feel like I owe everything to my parents,” Hylton said. “They have been the most supportive people in my life. They always have supported me academically and [in] my extra-curricular activities. My parents never really pushed me in any particular direction. I never felt pressured to achieve because of my parents.
“They barely ever mentioned Harvard when I was growing up. My family is supportive, but not pushy,” she reiterated. “They want me to do my best, but they will never tell me that I have to achieve a certain standard.”
Even without external pressure, Hylton has achieved greatly. In addition to ranking number one in her graduating Harvard class, she already has plans to start work as an associate for a public policy research company, which is an extension of her interest in social issues.
Getting ready for policy research
Hylton stated that this position is a “natural transition for me as [it] is an extension of the research that I have done in undergrad.” For two years, Hylton was a fellow of the Mellon Mays Program, which prepares minority students who have a strong interest in pursuing a PhD.
“This program led me into a job doing policy research, which is really exciting for me,” Hylton said.
Hylton is not only smart, but is also a good athlete who ran track during her first two years of college. Her time on the track team was, “definitely a good experience,” she said. “Looking back on those first two years, it was great being on a team because I met great new friends really fast.”
Balancing academics and extracurriculars
Plus, her student-athlete status made her a master at time management. “In terms of balancing the schedule, it was a natural transition from high school because I played sports then,” Hylton said. “Coming into college, I knew that I would take my classes early in the morning and make sure I [used] my free time [wisely].”
A major change came, though, as Hylton faced recurring injuries from her track career.
“I actually left the track team because I had a lot of injuries,” she explained. “That was definitely difficult because I felt like I had failed. I came [into] college thinking that I would improve and run faster than in high school. [After track], I started to think about where I would go next.”
Hylton overcame her disappointment with sports by thinking about her many alternative options, and opted to serve others. “I overcame [my track difficulties] by thinking about a new team that I could get involved with in [a] collaborative activity,” she told theGrio. “For me, that ended up being tutoring students through an after school program to prepare them for college and the SAT test. I met a ton of other undergrads who were involved in the program. I also built bonds with the staff and students who were high-schoolers in Boston.
“This was a way for me to build a new team and a new set of goals for myself after coming off the track team,” Hylton said. “Looking back, I’m glad that I was on the track team. However, a hidden blessing of me getting injured was being able to try new things.”
Inspired to help close the achievement gap
Ultimately, Hylton would love to pursue a career that helps close the achievement gap, something her college volunteer work prepared her for, and which also became a growing interest for her during her undergraduate career. Hylton, for example, “wrote [her] senior thesis about a modern, current school desegregation program,” one means of leveling the educational outcomes between students from different backgrounds.
Hylton knows she wants to pursue policy making as a career in keeping with this goal — but she is flexible about the process of getting into the perfect positioning to do so. “I want to make a difference in policy, but as to where that will take me, I’m open to figuring that out,” she explained.
As Hylton matriculates to the next phase of life, she will have a valuable Harvard degree and four years of deep experiences to help her apply herself in the future. But, spoken like a true humanitarian, what she values most about the Harvard experience is the people she met there, everyone from grad students to professors.
“I’ve met so many people there that I hope to keep in touch with for life,” Hilton mused.
Advice for college students just starting out
She also has some great advice for people just entering college, who might be inspired by her story. “I would tell them to find something that they are passionate about academically. You don’t need to study in one subject just because it was the right thing to do, or [to] get a job,” Hylton told theGrio. “I came in thinking that I would be pre-med at Harvard, but I really didn’t’ enjoy it that much. I switched to sociology, because the classes engaged me and I was interested in them. It was finding that academic passion that enabled me to throw myself into my work because it didn’t feel like a drag. It felt like something that I was excited to be working on.”
Hylton’s parting words of collegiate wisdom?
“Don’t limit yourself based off of some vision that you set before you go into college.”
Lawrence Watkins is the founder of Great Black Speakers, Great Pro Speakers, and co-founder of Ujamaa Deals, a daily deal site that promotes black-owned businesses. He graduated in 2006 from The University of Louisville with a B.S. in electrical engineering and earned his MBA from Cornell University in 2010. You can follow him on Twitter @lawrencewatkins.