Hawken Student Wows With Long List of Accomplishments

Only a student as accomplished as Aric Floyd could calmly run through a list of Ivy League colleges when asked what he did over spring break.

"We visited some colleges on the East Coast — Brown and Columbia, Harvard, Yale and Princeton and MIT," the Hawken School junior responded. "I'm leaning towards Yale, but the hard thing is getting in."

In talking to Aric, you get the sense that the hard part won't be getting in, but figuring out what to concentrate on. Aric is an athlete, an actor, a science and engineering fair winner and a member of one of the top speech and debate teams in the state.

Here's what Aric's 2013 looks like after three full months:

• Aric will be featured in "Underdogs," a movie that will premiere Tuesday at the Cleveland International Film Festival. He also wrote two songs for the soundtrack.

• The American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese named Aric one of 12 recipients of a travel scholarship to Costa Rica for his stellar results on the National Spanish Exam.

• In March, Aric was announced as a grand prize winner at the 2013 Northeast Ohio Science and Engineering Fair at John Carroll University. That victory qualifies him for the International Science and Engineering Fair next month in Phoenix.

• Aric also placed third in the state for his performance in the "Lincoln Douglas" debate at the Ohio High School Debate League tournament.

• Aric was the 2013 winner of Shakespeare Competition of the Cleveland Branch of The English-Speaking Union. He will compete in nationals later this month in New York.

"I feel busy during the school year, especially, but it's not in a stressful way," he said last week following track and field practice. "I enjoy doing a lot of things, and I really enjoy interacting with different kind of people.

"That's the main reason I'm involved in a lot of things."

Aric understands that's he's fortunate to attend Hawken, a school that has "tons" of students involved in prestigious extra-curricular activities, he said.

"They support you in pursing those kind of interests," he said of the school's staff. "I'm really lucky to have parents, teachers and friends willing to accommodate me as I do all these things."

Despite his academic accomplishments, Aric says he would choose acting if he was left to just one area of interest. He gained acclaim across Northeast Ohio in 2008 for performance as Travis in Cleveland Play House's production, "A Raisin in the Sun."

"(In acting) you might be doing sports one day, music the next," the varsity soccer player said. "Acting lets you explore. That's sort of a cheating answer because if you act you can do all of these things, pretend, anyway."

Aric said his parents instilled the the idea of doing his best at whatever task he takes on. However, they didn't pressure him to finish first. He developed that desire on his own.

"Wanting to better my best comes from my own desire to do well," he said. "I want to give back to all the people who made this possible for me."

Understandably, Aric is undecided on a career path.

"I had said being an engineer, but debate has got me really interested in politics and political philosophy," he said. "I see myself in some sort of public-service-minded career — research or being a politician.

"I'm just excited to get to college to study a bunch of stuff."