Senior Prarthana Dalal Finds Time To Do It All

It’s 3 a.m.

Senior Prarthana Dalal is slowly waking to the sound of her alarm, she must get back to work. In just a few hours, her Canto depicting Dante’s Inferno is due for Mr. Pulsinelli, her sophomore English teacher at the time. Tonight she plans not to go to sleep but rather take intermittent naps throughout her work: write for two hours, nap for two hours, repeat. Although this isn’t nearly a nightly occurrence for Prarthana, she won’t stop working until she truly believes that she has done the best work of which she is capable.

Ranked second in the class, Dalal can’t remember an occasion where she has told anyone of her rank, and at the time she isn’t even sure of her GPA; that’s not what matters to her. Unlike many other students sitting atop their class, Dalal knows that neither number nor rank personifies a student.

“I don’t think my rank necessarily reflects my intelligence,” Dalal said. “I think everyone is just as intelligent as everyone else. It’s just the effort or hard work that makes the difference. You do your homework and you do what’s needed and everything takes care of itself.”

Although colleges and universities use GPA and class rank to judge a student, it is almost never a completely fair and accurate tool since students all throughout the country have figured out the game of inflating GPAs and the raising ranks that come with them.

Dalal’s nonchalant take on class rank and GPA is hard to come by, since when it comes to the top ranks of the class, the final spots are very competitive. Associate principal Steve Loe knows that many students at East are focused too much on the grade rather than the knowledge.

“It depends on the student, but I think this is driven by our society and the very selective universities who demand a certain GPA as a requirement,” Loe said. “I think this does force a student to make a decision where they are more focused on a 4.0 and not completely focused on the subject”

Dalal doesn’t worry about class rank partially because she knows that she has more to offer than her colleagues. At East, Dalal is a member of orchestra, debate and most notably she performs research and has for the past five years.

When Dalal first started her research, most of her fellow middle schoolers’ after-school plans consisted of sitting in front of a TV until dinner was served, not getting driven to Children’s Mercy Hospital to spend their time under a microscope scrutinizing cells alongside students almost done with their college degree. When Dalal first began her research in eighth grade, she may have been way over her head but just like she has in every other challenging situation, she adapted.

After one year at Children’s Mercy, Dalal’s focus shifted; the lab she had worked in had a focus in kidneys, but Dalal found an interest in hemoglobin, which led her to KU Medical Center. Ever since her freshman year, Dalal could be found there.

Dalal’s change of focus can be credited to her first hand experience of seeing what hemoglobin can do. The summer entering high school, Dalal volunteered at a Red Cross Center in India. Although her time was spent behind a desk through paperwork, she saw the many patients suffering from the disease.

Not many eighth graders can grab the attention of professional researchers in search of a job opportunity, but Dalal did. For most of her life Dalal has competed in and finished very well in numerous science fairs but most noticeably was a fair she competed in two years ago. As a sophomore, Dalal traveled to the International Science and Engineering Fair. Here against 1,500 other brilliant high school minds, Dalal got fourth in the Medicine and Health Sciences sub-division.

When looking at Dalal’s extra-curricular activities, it is hard to imagine that a student that volunteers so much time after school can manage to position themselves second in the class.

“Research shows that students who take academics seriously and do their job in the classroom as well as do extra curricular activities – research shows that this correlates with success post high school,” Loe said. “Those students know how to go the extra mile.”

Although Dalal hasn’t made positioning herself atop the class an objective, she has done exactly that. Not by stacking her schedule with relatively easier honors credits but by her work ethic.

“I don’t think I’ve worked for my class rank; my class rank is something that was never a goal of mine, to necessarily be top of the class,” Dalal said. “It’s worked out that way and I’m definitely very proud of it.”

Ever since the years when Dalal’s grade cards consisted of little more than pluses or minuses, Dalal believes that she has absolutely worked as hard as she possibly could of and if she were given the chance, wouldn’t change a thing.

“I think a lot of kids throughout the world don’t have the opportunity to do anything that they want,” Dalal said. “I’m really fortunate that I do and it makes me want to make sure that I make use of those opportunities.”