A Sophomore Summer to Remember - Robert Tsang Hinton

Robert Hinton is a junior at the Harvard Westlake school in Los Angeles. Robert tells readers about his transition from an invisible player to a sought-after recruit over the course of a summer.

Six months.  In the span of 6 months I have gone from a basketball player with 0 college offers and being unranked, to being a Harvard University basketball commit and a 4 star recruit.  It was always one of my biggest dreams to go to an Ivy League school.  My father went to Princeton University and Harvard Law school, and my brother is in his freshman year right now playing basketball at Cornell. My whole life I have always told myself, and was told, that if I really do want to go to these amazing schools I will have to put the work in.  I was told that I had to work my hardest to be the best in the classroom and the court.  I knew this would be very challenging.  I live in Los Angeles, a large metropolis where the talent pool is vast.  I attend Harvard-Westlake High School, which is nationally ranked academically as one of the best private schools and is also ranked nationally for its basketball program.  Thanks to my parents, I have been put in the best possible positions since a young age so that I can become the best person, student, and player I could possibly be, from helping me attend the best schools, to supporting me throughout my whole basketball journey starting at age 4 to now.  

Up to half a year ago, I was worried  about my future.  I was a 16 year old sophomore in high school, who aspired to be a D1 basketball player but had no offers, no stars (i.e., the basketball ranking system assessed by three national college scouting organizations), no national ranking, and when I looked on social media every day I continually saw other people my age (and older) on social media achieving the same things I dreamed of. 

Thanks to my family, friends, and coaches, I continued to keep studying hard, working hard, and was pushed to become better every day, and this all paid off.  Playing basketball at Harvard-Westlake (currently the 13th best basketball team in high school basketball nationally by ESPN) and Team Why Not (NBA player Russel Westbrook’s Nike AAU basketball team) during the summer helped me grow as a basketball player, and also gave me the opportunity to have exposure to every college in the country.  This past summer, I was able to play in the top basketball tournaments around the entire country, and also was able to showcase my talent in exclusive basketball camps that I have dreamt of being invited to my whole life.  As a result of my playing well and my talent being showcased the whole summer in front of hundreds of college coaches, NBA scouts, and writers, I was blessed to see dramatic results.  I got my first offer from UCSD on May 13th, and after that everything followed rapidly.  I was contacted by  countless coaches from D1 colleges, including all of the ivy league schools, and received offers the summer of my sophomore year from Harvard, Princeton and Dartmouth.  I also started showing up on all the national ranking websites for basketball players including ESPN and was ranked as a 4-star recruit and top-20 players in the country at my position. 

After receiving my offers from my two dream schools, Harvard and Princeton, I quickly realized that I did not want to spend any more time taking calls from other wonderful coaches or discussing any more offers when I already had my dream schools right in front of me.  I took my official visits to both Harvard and Princeton in the span of two consecutive weekends, and concluded that Harvard University was the perfect fit for me.  At Harvard I was able to meet my future coaches and teammates who are all amazing people, meet some of my future professors, see the beautiful campus I will get to be on every day and experience my future lifestyle as a Harvard student-athlete.  I loved every bit of it!  

           Even though it seemed like even getting an offer would be impossible for me half a year ago, I never once stopped pushing and working, and was blessed to see my whole life change in a blink of an eye.  It is a sophomore summer that I will remember forever.