Dreaming Big, Diving Deep: Ailyn Langley’s Road to College

Raised in the hills of rural West Fairlee, Ailyn Langley has always gravitated toward nature—woods, water, and everything in between. As she grew older, her interest turned seaward, sparked by a school trip to the Boston Aquarium with her class at Rivendell High School. Her job in the fish and reptile department at the West Lebanon Aquarium Center deepened that curiosity.

Now a first-year student at Dartmouth College, Ailyn hasn’t declared her major quite yet—but time around salt-water creatures has stuck with her. Ailyn is leaning toward majoring in biology with a focus on marine life.

“I’m headed toward the ocean,” she says confidently. “It’s fascinating and beautiful and I want to be able to look deeper into it. Many parts of the ocean are misunderstood in one way or another,” she says. And Ailyn means sharks, in particular. “People are generally very scared of them. But take hammerhead sharks as an example. You have to use special equipment to swim with them that doesn’t produce bubbles because they are afraid of them. It’s fascinating.”

Ailyn is focusing deeply on marine biology, but she’s also fascinated by neuroscience. Both interests are rooted in classes she took with the same teacher at Rivendell High School. And although she’s only been at Dartmouth for a few months, she is already thinking about the possibilities in front of her. Ailyn says that she wants to take full advantage of every opportunity, especially as Dartmouth was the school that was always in the back of her mind as the place she wanted to be. “I enjoy being here,” she smiles. “The faculty are wonderful and I’ve made some really good friends.”  

There are even some programs at Dartmouth that give students the opportunity to dive, says Ailyn, and she’s excited to learn more about those options.

I really want to use all the opportunities I have here to look into more specifically what I can do. There are still so many things about sharks that haven’t been researched yet, or there are still a lot of questions out there about them, like the fact that no one really knows why hammerheads have heads shaped like a hammer! What if I could help answer those?

Working to reach her dream school

Ailyn’s mom passed away from melanoma when Ailyn was 11. Her father is very supportive of Ailyn’s choices, but he wasn’t necessarily well-versed in the college process. Getting into Dartmouth wasn’t easy, Ailyn says.

Ailyn participated in VSAC’s GEAR UP college and career readiness program in high school, and she began working with VSAC Outreach Counselor Kassidy Moore at the end of her junior year. Narrowing her interests and selecting schools to apply to was a journey.  

Initially focused on online art programs, she later shifted toward psychology and then biology. “During the summer before my senior year in high school I started realizing that I wanted art to be my hobby but not something I wanted to be doing in a job setting. I turned my attention toward psychology first, looking into neuroscience,” she says. Whenever she made a college list, Dartmouth was always on it.

Working with VSAC was a critical part of her process. “I was always going to Kassidy, every time she was available, I would be there. She helped me figure out the ideas I wanted to bring into my essays and the colleges I might want to think about,” she says.  

Kassidy also helped her with her essays. “My essay, the general one especially, went through so many drafts. Kassidy’s office was always full, but she would always fit me in,” she says. After acceptance, Kassidy helped connect Ailyn with the first-generation office at Dartmouth and brought her to the school for a campus tour.

Navigating financial aid was another area where Kassidy provided guidance.

My financial aid packages came in, and I had no idea what I was looking at. Kassidy helped me set up a spreadsheet to look at my financial aid, helped me look at scholarships, what else I could apply for, and what it meant for me. She also helped me figure out the documents I might need and what the different schools were asking for.

Ailyn says that doubts she would be at Dartmouth without help from VSAC. “I don’t know if I would have gone to college without Kassidy. There were so many people at Rivendell helping me, but Kassidy helped me with so many details and explained so many things I had no idea what they meant or what they were doing. We’d be in a totally different situation, and I doubt I’d be at Dartmouth without her help,” she says.

Receiving her acceptance brought on a mix of anxiety and excitement for Ailyn. “When Dartmouth decisions came out, the website took so long to load because so many people were looking at the same time. I was so tired. It was the last college decision I had coming in. I was nervous and anxious. I had no idea if I’d get in. I really hadn’t expected to get in, although I’d dreamed about that moment so many times. A big part of me thought it wasn’t going to happen. I was by myself upstairs in our house. I quietly went downstairs and showed Dad my computer and we really just freaked out together,” she says.

Narrowing her focus: "You can do anything—but you can’t do everything”

Ailyn is a first-generation student, and she’s tapped resources offered by Dartmouth College to help provide additional guidance and support to students whose parents did not graduate with a four-year degree. The director of the Dartmouth first-generation office helped her get oriented, she notes. “He always says, ‘you can do anything, but you can’t do everything at Dartmouth.’ It kind of helps narrow my focus a bit,” she explains. 

Ailyn especially appreciates the support system the office provides. “The director has a tissue box in his office signed by everyone who’s cried in there. There are a lot of names. You can get so overwhelmed in college, but that helps you know it’s normal to feel that way,” she says.

Ailyn says Dartmouth’s first-generation community is one of the biggest reasons she feels successful in her first term. “I have challenges with anxiety,” she shares, “so having that support system and these people around me has made a great college experience possible.”

Thinking back to the moment that she found out that she was accepted to Dartmouth, Ailyn says it feels a little surreal. She’s wrapping up her first semester at Dartmouth now. And as for her future? The ocean is calling.