Rowland Raider Spotlights

Evangeline “Evie” Kim, a senior at Rowland High School will attend Johns Hopkins University on a near-full scholarship after building a standout record of academic excellence, leadership and service  

When the clock struck noon, Evie Kim tried to do what many high-achieving seniors promise themselves they will do: wait.  The Johns Hopkins University decision had landed in the middle of math class, and Kim had every intention of opening it later, somewhere private, somewhere she would not have to manage whatever came next in front of a room full of classmates. Instead, she gave in to the suspense, pulled up the portal and clicked.  Then she gasped.

A friend peered over her shoulder, saw the word she had been hoping for and announced it to the class before Kim could say anything at all. The senior at Rowland High School, who had spent years pushing herself in the classroom, on the track and through a long list of service and leadership roles, found herself shaking and crying at her desk.

It was the moment a year-long goal became real. Kim, a member of the Class of 2026, will attend Johns Hopkins this fall on what she described as a financial aid package that makes the opportunity “pretty much free.” She was also admitted to Cornell University, Boston University and New York University, and accepted to every University of California campus to which she applied, including UCLA and UC Berkeley, with a Regents Scholarship from UC Santa Barbara. But Johns Hopkins had long stood out. 

Part of the appeal was practical: family in Baltimore and a chance to be closer to relatives on the East Coast. Part of it was academic: the university’s reputation in medicine, the field she hopes to enter. And part of it was philosophical. Kim said she was drawn to how deeply the university engages with the wider Baltimore community, a value that mirrors the way she has approached her own education. At Johns Hopkins, Kim plans to explore medicine more deeply, with particular interest in emergency medicine and global health settings where care and crisis intersect.

That approach started early. The daughter of a science teacher, Kim grew up in a household where curiosity was not abstract; it was hands-on. Kitchen science experiments with her father helped shape an early fascination with how the world works and, eventually, how science intersects with people’s lives. In her college applications, she wrote about medicine not just as biology or diagnosis, but as something shaped by culture, policy, and history — a perspective informed by reading widely, taking rigorous science courses and spending summers in Taipei, Taiwan, where she cared for her great-grandmother.

Kim carried a 4.556 weighted GPA and a 4.0 unweighted GPA, with a class rank of 2. She earned a 1560 on the SAT and a string of top AP scores. Her personal rule, she said, is simple: only do what genuinely matters. If an activity causes stress without growth or joy, she lets it go. On campus, Kim has been a four-year varsity athlete in cross country and track and field, a team captain and part of the group that led Rowland High’s girls cross country team to its first CIF Finals appearance in school history. She credits running with giving her both an outlet and a community. It was demanding, she said, but also grounding — a way to step outside the pressure of academics for a few hours each day.

She also became co-president of the school’s Computer Science Club, where she helped grow female membership dramatically while organizing STEAM events for younger students. But some of her most meaningful work came from a more personal place.

Kim revived the NOH8 (“No Hate”) Club, Rowland High’s Gender-Sexuality Alliance, after the club had been inactive for several years. Starting it again took courage, she said, because of negative attitudes she had seen and heard around campus. Even so, she pressed forward, recruited an officer team and helped expand the club across grade levels. In her view, it was one of the most personal things she has done in high school — and one of the most important.

Advice for Future Raiders: Do not build a high school life around what looks impressive from the outside, she said. Build one around what you can talk about honestly, what you care about enough to continue after graduation, what you find valuable for your own reasons.