College in Australia: Tess Clancy’s Acceptance

It’s a hot summer day, but she doesn’t mind – she’s thriving.

She’s walking along a beach, knowing full well that some sort of creepy crawler could come her way at any moment as they tend to do here, but she’s prepared.

In fact, it’s what she’s been waiting for. She breathes in the warm ocean air and takes in the beauty that surrounds her.

This is senior Tess Clancy’s dream, and she’s already halfway there.

  This past July, Clancy was accepted into the University of Sydney’s Bachelor of Science program, where she’s hoping to hone in her studies on toxicology, which concerns the effects of chemicals on the bodies of organisms. Although her college admissions process isn’t totally over (Clancy can’t formally accept the offer until later in the school year), she’s convinced there’s no other path for her.

  “…I think, really, it was my major that really decided where I would go because they have over 20,000 species of snakes and spiders [in Australia],” said Clancy. “…the closest place to going to college in Australia would be Arizona because they have rattlesnakes and stuff like that, so that’s a backup decision.”

  According to Clancy’s mother, Gigi Coviello, this choice has been a lifetime coming.

  “From the very beginning of her life, Tess has always talked about being a doctor; it was just the kind of doctor that she wanted to be,” said Coviello. “…she always had an interest in bugs and different types of bites, so we talked about what kind of doctor she could be with that, and we traveled a lot. She really had an interest in going to Australia because that would probably be the best place to study toxicology, which is [the study of] venoms and things like that, so Australia was…the best place, really.”

   Although Clancy’s major has played a huge role in her choice of college, it wasn’t the only factor that pushed Tess away from home. According to the retellings of Clancy and Coviello, their family’s life has always been rooted in travel and exploration, a fact that has been made clear to Clancy’s longtime best friend Rachel Arthur.

  “Tess is absolutely a traveler,” Arthur said. “…she’s been to more places than anyone I’ve ever known…and I think that Tess is just a person [who] can’t be grounded to one place. Tess is absolutely a person [who] loves to experience culture and how other people view things…she’s everywhere.”

  Coviello fondly recalls a time in her daughter’s young childhood when it became apparent that Clancy would remain attached to wildlife and nature for the rest of her life, speaking of both her daughter and the world she loves to explore in words filled to the brim with admiration.

  “We spent a lot of our time on the ocean…and exposing her to different things in the animal world,” said Coviello. “I mean, when she was…maybe nine years old, we [went to] swim with the dolphins in the wild in Florida and she was the first one in the water…Nobody else was even in their suit yet. She just dove into the ocean…the earth is just an incredible place, and I think we exposed her to all of that.”

  Coviello has played a major role in shaping Clancy’s life, though she made it clear that she always lets Clancy take the reins when it comes to making big decisions. Clancy admitted that her impending move will present her with new and frightening challenges.

  “I think my biggest fear is just not having close friends that I really know, because if…I end up going to a party or something like that…anything could happen,” said Clancy. “I’m not really gonna have anyone to fall back to besides calling my mom or a friend and saying, ‘Oh my God! This happened.’ I’m not gonna be able to go to a [friend’s] house or anything.”

  Arthur shared some of these worries with her best friend, including the time difference (15 hours!) between Pennsylvania, where Arthur hopes to attend college at Temple University, and Australia, but Arthur is confident in the pair’s ability to remain connected.

  “I know that one of Tess’s biggest concerns is keeping in touch with her friends and her family when she moves…but I…don’t think our relationship will change at all,” said Arthur. “I will still feel as close to her as I feel now.”

  Coviello is equally sure that she will remain a big part of her daughter’s life while still allowing Clancy to blossom on her own.

  “I’m just excited for her in general,” said Coviello. “I mean, I think that she’s ready, I think that she’s equipped, I think that we gave her everything that she needed, I think we prepared her…I’m just totally excited for her, that she ended up getting the life that her father and I probably would have liked had we had the parents that we were. We came from nothing, her father and I, and built whatever we built together, and Tess was always…just the ultimate light in our life…to give her the best shot that she could have in life, that was our goal.”

  A year from now, as Clancy starts her life anew in Australia and begins her intense studies, that goal eighteen years in the making will finally be achieved.

  And what’s more? That’s only the beginning.