Vancouver Sun profiles undergraduate student Afrag Gill

– He graduated from high school this year from Enver Creek secondary in Surrey. He scored a perfect 100 per cent in all seven of the courses he took (other than a 94 per cent in Phys. Ed., which was not counted in his final grade average). Several of his Grade 12 courses, including Math 12, he had taken a year earlier in the second semester of Grade 11 – “To get them out of the way,” Afraj said. Needless to say, he graduated at the top of his class.

– He was class valedictorian.

– He was president of the school’s student council, and president of the graduation committee.

– In each of his four years of high school, his final grade average was either 99 per cent or 100 per cent.

– In recognition of his perfect marks, he won 16 scholarships. These scholarships, collectively, are worth almost $100,000. One of them, the Simon Fraser University Award, is alone worth $34,000.

– Most of these scholarships recognized not only Afraj’s scholastic achievements but his extracurricular activities as well. He belonged to seven community and service organizations and volunteered countless hours of his time, including speaking to youth (as if he weren’t one himself) on problems in high school and self-motivation. Among his awards was the City of Surrey Community Spirit Award. He was top honours recipient for 2010.

– He joined the air cadets when he was 12. He was as adept there as he was in school. He earned his private pilot’s licence and glider licence before he learned how to drive. He was the youngest recipient to be awarded the Royal Canadian Medal of Excellence and the Duke of Edinburgh Award, both medals presented to him by the Lieutenant-Governor of B.C. and the Duke of Edinburgh. He also won the Army, Navy and Air Force Veterans in Canada Medal of Excellence.

– He has a black belt in tae kwon do.

Afraj, for all of that, is a perfectly nice kid, which is a pleasant surprise, given that mere mortals such as, well, almost all of us, can find superachievers such as Afraj an annoying reminder of our own failings. Had his accomplishments ever caused resentment among his fellow students?

“Among some kids, yes,” he said. “There was resentment. But it also got a lot of respect from other kids, too. After four years, they got used to the fact I was going to get high grades.”

Those grades, he said, did not come easily. He was not one of those students who, maddeningly, never cracked a book but still aced his exams. He has never had his IQ tested, only his willingness to work. Really, really hard.

“When I first started in school here -in Grade 2 -I was an ESL student. I could speak fundamental English but I still had a lot of problems. My grades were only so-so through elementary school, in the 70s and 80s.”

He and his elder brother, Karanbir, were also the target of bullies in elementary school and had trouble fitting in socially. But then Afraj joined Air Cadets, which helped motivate him and set goals for the future. By then his English was perfect, and when he entered high school he saw it as a whole new beginning. His competitive nature kicked in.

“There were so many more students in high school than in elementary school, and I saw all these kids doing really well in class and joining clubs and volunteering, and I thought, ‘I can do better than them,’ and my grades just took off.”

It was self-motivation on a scale with which most of us are unfamiliar. His routine was gruelling. After spending a couple hours after school volunteering or in extracurricular activities, he would come home at 5 p.m., eat and then hit the books. He would do homework every night, on every school day, for five or six hours. Then he would go to bed around midnight.

“It was a lot of hard work,” Afraj said. “It was just having that constant feeling of wanting to do my very best. I’m having a lot of fun when I’m pushing myself to the furthest limits.”

He sacrificed what most of us would consider a social life in high school, though Afraj doesn’t see it that way. He didn’t party. He didn’t have a girlfriend. He kept his social life confined to his friends and activities at school.

“There’s too many distractions out there for kids our age. This age [the teenage years] is there for us to focus on our own future. A lot of kids focus less on what it takes to have a successful life and more on having a good time … and ultimately, after high school, it’s all over [for them], the fun and games.”

Coming from India made him conscious of the opportunity he was being given. There, he said, caste and social standing could restrict one’s future: Here in Canada, he said, one has the luxury, through hard work, of being allowed to achieve whatever one is capable of.

“Kids here,” he said, “take it for granted, the privileges they have.”

He will enter SFU this fall for business school. He hopes eventually to get an MBA from Harvard. His ultimate aim, he said, is to be a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist.

“My dream ultimately is to travel around the world and help people with my own hands, like building schools.”

pmcmartin@vancouversun.com 604-605-2905

This article was printed in the Saturday, August 28, 2010 edition of the Vancouver Sun.

To read the article online: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Perfect+grades+perfectly+nice/3454572/story.html#ixzz0yIb3zAIE