Senior Spotlight: Luke Neale (12-4)

Michael Samuel (12-2)

Photo courtesy of Luke Neale (12-4)

You’re a runner: can you tell me about track?

I’ve been with the cross country and track teams all of highschool, and I also did Students Run [Philly Style] in 7th and 8th grade, so I’ve been a part of it for a while. I enjoy running; it’s a really fun pastime. I also throw javelin.


What’s a trip or event you’re looking forward to?

I haven’t been on a trip in a while because of COVID, but this summer I’m going on a trip with my choir to England and Scotland, so that’ll be a lot of fun. Also, it’d be cool to go to track states again.

How are your college applications going?

I’ve set a schedule for myself, and I’m falling behind schedule, but I also knew that I would fall behind schedule, so I intentionally set it up so that even if I fell behind schedule, I would still be on a different schedule that still works. I’m not doing great, but I’m doing good enough.


What’s one thing you’ve learned applying for college?

You can be really productive if you do something that you need to do at a time when you’re supposed to be doing something else. It’s a nice thing I wish I knew about earlier.


What has your favorite class been this year?

I don’t know, honestly, every class has been good. I’ve been enjoying [AP] Gov[ernment] a lot this year, though. I think we have some really interesting discussions.


What’s the UVA thing?

Both of my parents went there. I like the college, I actually might apply there. I love the UVA sports. My dad’s a big UVA sports fan, and so I sort of latched onto that. In 2018, we lost to a 16-seed and that was really upsetting, but I doubled down and used that as an opportunity to care even more. Then the next year we won the national championship, and so, from then on, I’ve been a huge UVA sports fan.


What is the best type of cake?

I have to go with carrot cake. It’s got all the good flavor that’s in any other kind of cake without the feeling that it was too much after you’re done. It’s also something that’s good to eat on its own, as opposed to chocolate cake, which is great to eat with ice cream, but if you don’t have ice cream, carrot cake is pretty much the best.