Kevin Schmidt’s mother says that he’s always either going 60 miles an hour, or he’s going zero. For clarification, zero occurs only when he’s asleep. An interview in the Runyan Center Coffee Shop bears this description out, though some observers might say that he’s going a lot faster than 60. 

Schmidt ’12 is a biochemistry major who has, as he puts it, “squeezed every drop,” out of his four years at Earlham. 

He traveled to the rainforest in Ecuador to conduct field research on the mating habits of songbirds with Assistant Professor of Biology Wendy Tori. With Chris Smith, also an assistant professor of biology, he pored over hundreds of samples of yellow jacket wasps. Findings from his research with Smith will likely lead to  publication in a professional journal. 

Last summer, he was a research assistant in a lab run by Steven Kosak ’93 at Northwestern University. There, he and colleagues used live cell imaging to investigate cellular processes and behavior. The project was an attempt to corroborate emerging evidence related to the possibility of  “nuclear translation,” (that is, the process of translation, which has long been believed to only occur in the cytoplasm of cells, occurring in nuclei). This possibility was first described in a recent article in Science, but has not yet been independently verified.  If nuclear translation does exist, scientists’ understanding of cellular biology would be fundamentally changed. He reported on this preliminary research at a recent biology department colloquium.

In addition to these research opportunities, he has benefitted from Earlham’s exceptional coursework, including the human cadaver lab in Professor Bob Rosenberg’s human anatomy course — a rarity in undergraduate programs. He has also served as a teaching assistant in two different courses.

A cellist since the fourth grade, Schmidt has occupied the first chair in Earlham’s orchestra for four years. He played in several string quartets, including one that was invited to play at the Lotus Music Festival in Bloomington, Ind., accompanying a group of Tuvan throat singers from Mongolia. He will play a movement from the Dvorak cello concerto with the Earlham orchestra later this semester. Schmidt is also host of a classical music show of WECI-FM, the college radio station, and plays Ultimate Frisbee. 

Oh, and when he took the notoriously difficult Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) in August, Schmidt received a nearly perfect score.

Subway Study Hall

“When I took the MCAT last spring, I got a pretty mediocre score,” Schmidt recalls. “So I decided I needed to study harder over the summer. The problem is, with my position at Northwestern, I didn’t have a lot time, but I was taking the train from my parents’ house in the western suburbs of Chicago, and then another train up to Northwestern’s medical campus, so I did a lot of studying on the train.” (Schmidt’s August score, 39T, placed him in the 99th percentile of MCAT takers.)

Schmidt, who is contemplating a career as a primary care physician, has already been accepted at the medical school at the University of Michigan and is waiting to hear from several other institutions. He suggests that his extraordinary MCAT score was the result of more than pure talent.

“There are certain areas of physics that I’m considerably less knowledgeable about, and those happened not to show up on the test in August,” he recalls. “And then there was a long section on genetics, and when I finished, I thought I had probably gotten all of those questions right. So there was some luck involved.”

Peter Blair, associate professor of biology, notes that Schmidt’s score will certainly set him apart from other highly qualified medical school applicants.

“His MCAT score is the highest I have witnessed during my tenure at Earlham,” says Blair, who works closely with many pre-med students. “We have had students with lower scores enroll in premier medical schools, including Harvard.”

Just Say “Yes”

Schmidt says that perhaps the most important thing for prospective students to know about Earlham is that if they are open to opportunities, faculty members will make things happen for them.

“If it is apparent and obvious that you are interested in learning, Earlham professors will open a road for you,” he says. “My recommendation to incoming students is to say ‘yes’ to every opportunity that comes your way.”

Besides welcoming opportunities to participate in scientific research and pursue his extracurricular interests, Schmidt was also successful in finding coursework outside the sciences that helped him make connections between his various interests.

Particularly affecting was a course entitled, Lost in the Woods, taught by Professor of History Chuck Yates, in which the class read various nature writers. 

“We read Annie Dillard’s The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and that was a really important book for me,” says Schmidt. “Dillard brought together biology, theology and appreciation of nature in a way that helped me put a frame around how I view the natural world. It emphasized the interrelatedness of things. Dillard offered a liberal arts perspective on the natural world, and when I went to Ecuador the following summer, that book was always on my mind.” 

Give it the Gas

Professor of Biology Amy Mulnix says that she is particularly impressed that Schmidt can excel in so many different endeavors.

“Kevin's greatest strength as a student is his intrinsic curiosity. He is interested in many things and this leads him to be able to make connections among quite different topics and to be very creative,” notes Mulnix. “This is true well beyond biology. He has found an excellent balance between his intellectual and emotional lives.”

Sitting with a reporter in the Runyan Center Coffee Shop, he seems intent on getting the most out of this interview, too. After each question, Schmidt ’12 pauses to marshal his thoughts and then leans across the table describing with precision the various facets of his Earlham experience. What comes through in the end is that his mother is right: for Kevin, it’s zero or sixty. There’s nothing in between.

“Another book we read in Lost in the Woods was Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, detailing the events of the life of Christopher McCandless, who sought to live alone in the Alaskan wilderness. Krakauer described McCandless as a young man of ‘characteristic immoderation’, and I identify strongly with this depiction. I approach everything in my life with positive immoderation,” says Schmidt. “I found that if you take that approach at Earlham there are an incredible number of opportunities to do amazing things.”