A student at Carden Academy in Morgan Hill, Gilroy’s Grace Grant
has eye on the future
Grace Grant looks like the typical teenager in her acid-washed
jeans, wearing the layered look with a long-sleeved T-shirt under a
short-sleeved Gumby baby tee
– but once she opens her mouth any notion that she’s just an
average 14-year-old is dispelled.
A student at Carden Academy in Morgan Hill, Gilroy’s Grace Grant has eye on the future
Grace Grant looks like the typical teenager in her acid-washed jeans, wearing the layered look with a long-sleeved T-shirt under a short-sleeved Gumby baby tee – but once she opens her mouth any notion that she’s just an average 14-year-old is dispelled.
Words drop from her mouth such as “realism” and “obsession,” when she talks about her dreams of being an author or a lawyer.
“I’ve always dwelt in success,” Grant said. “The thought of not succeeding is daunting.”
As a student at Carden Academy in Morgan Hill, the eighth-grader has always been pushed to her limits academically. Recently her music teacher and student council advisor, Karen Crane, suggested the family submit Grant as a candidate for the United States Achievement Academy. The Academy accepts only students who score in the top 10 percent academically while staying involved in extra curricular activities. It offers a scholarship program for those inducted into it.
“We’ve always gotten things from the school,” said Michael Grant, Grace’s father. “Sometimes we fill them out, sometimes we don’t. Nothing’s ever come of it.”
This year, the Grants filled out the application for the USAA and recently received notice that Grace had been accepted.
“I was jumping up and down,” Grace said. “I was really excited.”
The honor is the second in a line of recent awards. She has taken the Secondary School Admission Test for two years as a requirement for admission to several private high schools. The students scoring in the top three percent are eligible for the John Hopkins’ talent search, said Grace’s mother, Patricia. Grant has met the criteria for two years.
“It was more along the lines of having outside confirmation, outside of the school, of her abilities,” Michael said. “These little things – you hope they are taken with a little more weight on the college decision.”
Grant is still quite a while away from college. For now, she is focusing on finishing up her final year at Carden Academy, where she is active on student council and the editor of the school newspaper.
“When no editions came out last year, I went up to Mrs. Crane and asked if I could be editor,” Grant said. “She said if I could get a paper together by Thursday, I could be editor.”
Grant pulled together the trial issue in just a few days. As editor-in-chief, she is responsible for writing the letter to the editor, laying out the paper and making sure all the articles get in on time.
“Mostly it’s about hounding people,” she joked, of getting her classmates to turn in their stories.
Grant’s favorite subjects include English and History, though she excels in all her subjects.
“I like all the gray matter in between the black and white,” said the eighth-grader, who is an avid reader outside of the classroom.
“We read a lot so I think she picked that up,” said her mother. “Books and reading have always been a part of it. I always read to her at night, every night.”
Now that she is older, Grant spends more time reading on her own, sometimes spending time in an extra bedroom her parents let her decorate. The walls are a wine red and a day bed is covered with a black comforter on which she can lounge while reading. Piled in a corner are several books Grant is the in the middle of reading, including J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.”
“I always read the last few pages first,” she said.
Since her tastes in literature has turned to fantasy and science fiction her mother reads with her less, but her father spends time reading out loud with her at night, each taking on the voices of different characters.
“I miss that so much when I am out of town,” Michael said.
One of Grant’s favorite recent reads is “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” by Gregory Maguire. The story is told from the villain’s point of view – and Grant who always plays the villain in school plays – loved it.
She is starting a fantasy story of her own; one she said she’d like to publish some day.
“I’m starting a dragon book because I love fantasy,” she said. “Myth and legend have always been an obsession. It’s the concept of completely out of this world stuff happening.”
Grant spends an hour studying each day and an hour on homework, but still finds time to read for fun. When she spends her time outdoors, she enjoys playing tennis and riding her bike with friends.
“She has Friday night movies with the gang,” Michael said. “She’s a pretty typical kid.”
