Class of 2008
Hephestion was accepted by the prestigious St. Ignatius College Prep. He attended for two years, then, tiring of the long commute, he transferred to Glenbrook South. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana and received a B.A in Classical Studies and Economics. He was selected by the European Union Center (EUC) of the UIUC to attend the University of North Carolina Summer Study Tour to Brussels on full scholarship in June 2014. Hephestion also was selected as the recipient of the AY 2013-14 Houston-Papadimitriou Awards, which comes with a $1,000 prize for excellence in Modern Greek Studies! Hephestion, who has taken all the GRKM classes at the Program in Modern Greek Studies will also graduate with a Minor in Modern Greek. His Modern Greek studies landed Hephestion a (full tuition) FLAS Fellowship by the USD of Education and the EUC at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to study upper level Modern Greek during his sophomore year. Besides Ancient Greek and Latin, Hephestion has also reached intermediate level in both French and Russian. He is also fluent in Modern Greek. Hephestion won the U of I team trophy as the MVP of the University of Illinois team in the Division IV Panamerican Intercollegiate Chess Championship! He received a B.A in Classical Studies and Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana in 2016. He is currently a graduate student at the University of Chicago.