Wildwood School Viewbook: Brave Learners, Thinkers, and Doers

Sometimes Lulu Valentino ’16 thinks of herself as a scientist who loves art. Other times she’s an artist drawn to science. The good news: at Wildwood School, she can be both simultaneously. A Wildwood “lifer,” Lulu still remembers her first day of kindergarten as magical. “The school planted the seeds of self-reflection in five-year-old me and helped them blossom,” she says. In 9th grade, faced with a dazzling list of electives, she chose painting. Then, in 10th grade, she switched to advanced topics in science. It was a chance to “lean into my discomfort and go my own path,” says Lulu, undaunted. In that moment, she adds,

“I realized who I was and I was proud.” She enjoyed having her thinking challenged daily and describes Wildwood as “transformative.” A multimedia artist, Lulu did her junior-senior internship at an incubator for collaboration between scientists and artists. She also spent a summer studying nanotechnology at UCLA. Her senior exhibition was a hydroponic garden sculpture representing her Mexican, Austrian, and Irish heritage. She dreams of creating a museum for the visually impaired, including an art piece about drought, which would take place in total darkness and appeal to all senses. Lulu gained early acceptance at Vassar College in New York and plans to major in biology and minor in art history. Throughout her K–12 journey, Wildwood remained a place where “you never lose the kindergartener in you.”

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