Old Saybrook High School (OSHS) has had a rare nomination—the first in Principal Sheila Riffle’s tenure—for the prestigious United States Presidential Scholars Program. In January, the school and senior Joe Bradley were notified that he had been named a candidate for the honor.

The program offers recipients an expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C. to “meet with government officials, educators, and other accomplished people,” and awards each with a Presidential Scholarship medallion. Furthering one’s candidacy entails an extensive application process that is invitation only.

The candidacy, which is offered to more than 4,500 students nationwide, is based largely, if not entirely, on SAT and ACT scores, which in Bradley’s case were near perfect. He scored 35 out of 36 on the ACT and 1580 out of 1600 on the SAT.

Most universities have waived requirements for applicants to take these standardized tests due to the pandemic, as tests have repeatedly been canceled and postponed. But Bradley was intent on taking both.

“Five or six [SATs] got canceled,” he explained. “The first SAT got canceled the Saturday after school got canceled,” in March of 2020. “The last one was canceled in the last week of September.”

More than one ACT test was canceled as well.

Yet he managed to take both—the ACT in Branford in September and the SAT at OSHS in October.

The application, which is due Feb. 24, requires students to submit several essays, respond to a number of essay questions, and submit transcripts and a personal recommendation. It is expected to take 12 to 15 hours of work. Roughly 600 students will be named as semifinalists in early April with up to 161 Presidential Scholars announced in May.

The work to apply is in addition, of course, to college applications. And Bradley has applied to 18 universities.

“A lot of students applied to as many [universities] as possible,” he said. This is largely due to the “little extent to which we were able to explore colleges and look into them,” during the pandemic. The idea in applying so broadly, he explained, is to “cast the net wide and hope for the best.”

Bradley’s interested in pursuing physics and, in order to apply to specific programs, wrote around 24 “supplemental essays over Christmas break,” he said. He’s also been writing essays for scholarship applications.

He has information about deadlines and requirements organized in a spreadsheet, according to his father, Jack Bradley.

“For Sue [Joe’s mother] and I, we’re just incredibly proud of him and I feel like he takes it to another level,” he said. “It’s fun to watch him figure out what he’s going to do, where he’s going to go.”

Jack Bradley has the air of a parent who largely stands back and watches his kid with a sense of awe. He’s impressed with his son’s handling of the multiple and repeated cancellations and disappointments due to the pandemic.

“He missed out on—everybody did—so many things that are integral to his experience,” he said.

Sports were a no-go (Bradley was on the baseball team), but a greater hit was when the musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie, in which Joe Bradley had a leading role, was called off one day before opening night.

The spring concert, something he looks forward to each year, didn’t happen. The cumulative effects led to him to focus even more on academics, Jack Bradley said.

“It was heartbreaking, seeing some of the things that got canceled,” said Bradley. “But he didn’t let it get to him. He focused on the things he needed to focus on.”

One of those is piano, which he practices on his own initiative for about an hour a day. It’s an example of what Riffle says is most remarkable about Joe Bradley: “That crossover.”

“Oftentimes when you have a student who’s interested in the STEM [science, technology, engineering, math] track then they may have more of a left-brain approach to things versus a student who’s interested in the arts and has a right-brain approach to things,” she said.

“Joe has a whole brain,” she added, laughing.

“He extends opportunities for growth and learning to himself in every direction he can find,” Riffle said. “You’ve heard of a double threat, triple threat—Joe is a quintuple threat. He’s a visual artist, musician—he composes music—he’s an actor, a thespian. He is extremely interested in physics—he’s participated in summer programs [in physics] in the past.”

In addition to all that, he enjoys helping other students succeed. OSHS offers a number of internship-type opportunities to its students. As a sophomore, Bradley took an ECE (Early College Experience) physics course, certified by UConn, and excelled. The teacher, now retired, then asked Bradley to help with the course the following year.

“This year he is doing something similar with his French teacher,” said Riffle. “He completed AP French last year as a junior.”

This year he’s assisting his teacher in teaching French II.

“He’s in there helping students learn French and leading activities,” Riffle said.

“He’s such a service-oriented young man,” she continued. “He’s everywhere and he loves to help.”

Bradley has been co-chair of the Superintendent and Advisory Council and, thanks to his ability to set meeting agendas, “the superintendent and I show up and just have conversations with our kids. He just really gets what it takes to function in the adult world.”

He also started a coastal cleanup effort through the high school Ecology Club, which starting with him and a few friends removing trash from the shoreline and progressed to 20 or more kids showing up to help, according to Jack Bradley.

Riffle attributes some of this growth to the opportunities and personalization made possible by a small, close-knit school environment.

“Old Saybrook is a wonderful community who cares about the kids in it and sees the young adults as great resources for the future,” she said. “Our teachers do a phenomenal job of fostering student independence.

“Joe has had [opportunities] in physics and the French and many other opportunities that he sees available or people choose him for because he’s that kind of person,” she continued.

“When he’s offered the scholarship–which I think he will be—we’ll be shouting out from the mountain tops,” she said.