High School Taiko Drummer Gains an Advantage for College Admission

Crespi Senior Ryan Ojeil is an ideal candidate for many top colleges and universities. He has an impressive academic profile filled with good grades in A.P and honors classes as well as a good score on the SAT. He competes on the Crespi Track and Field team as a triple jumper and is a member of the Mountain Man Club. This past summer, he worked on a documentary about poverty filmed in Nairobi, Kenya. This well-rounded resume is a good foundation for college applications. But it is Ojeil’s talent as a taiko drummer that may give his academic profile a distinct advantage. Recently, Stanford asked him to submit an arts supplement in addition to his application. Ryan submitted a video of his performances and believes the strength of taiko at Stanford could help him earn an acceptance there. “Crespi is the only high school in the nation to offer taiko as a real class. It is a great advantage to be passionate about my art and also have it help me get in to a good university.”
While Crespi is the pioneering high school for taiko in the US, many prominent UC and CSU schools have been teaching taiko for several years. Estimates show, there are close to a thousand taiko ensembles in the US, most of which are based in California. Stanford is his primary choice. If he is not accepted there, Ryan has also applied to Amherst, Boston College, Claremont-McKenna, Loyola Marymount, Notre Dame, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and USC, most of which have prominent taiko ensembles in place.
Ryan is one of many students benefitting from the school’s fine arts program. The addition of the Fine Arts Building in the summer of 2008 made a home for taiko. Ojeil took full advantage of the programs offered in the new building as he enrolled in the class as a junior to fulfill his arts requirements. He thought the class would be “a fun alternative.” Now he says, “It is not just an elective someone could take for fun, but is it really educational.” The notoriety Ryan has received has been remarkable as he has only been in the program for two years. Taiko is an art form which incorporates mental focus, breathing exercises, fitness, mediation, and yoga. Ryan claims those lessons have helped him, “deal with stress or anxiety.”