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JACOB CHACKO. Remember that name. Few who know him would be surprised if the 21-year-old USC senior should go on to restructure Medicare or be named Surgeon General.
An academic superstar, a volunteer activist and a student-athlete – Chacko recently topped his already staggering list of achievements by becoming one of 40 undergraduates nationwide selected for a prestigious Marshall Scholarship.
He is only the third Trojan ever to win the coveted award, for which he competed with 900 other elite students. The prize – akin to the Rhodes Scholarship – lets American college graduates continue their studies in the United Kingdom. Created in 1953 to honor U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the British scholarship is worth about $50,000.
AS VALEDICTORIAN from top-ranked Palos Verdes Peninsula High School, the California-bred Chacko had his pick of Ivy colleges, but opted to attend USC as a Trustee Scholar in the elite baccalaureate/ M.D. program that guarantees admission to the Keck School of Medicine. As an undergraduate, he won dozens of awards for leadership and scholarship, most recently being named Mr. USC by the Order of the Torch honor society.
And now the Marshall, which takes him to Oxford next fall. Characteristically, Chacko is more excited about how his achievement benefits others than how it betters himself.
“The honor that the Marshall Scholar-ship brings the institution is great,” he says. “I’m proud to bring that to USC. It’s my way of thanking USC for everything it’s given me.”
Now in his last semester, Chacko looks back on his college years with satisfaction. “People told me USC is a good school despite the location,” he recalls. “But I soon realized USC is a great school because of the location. We’re not an ivory tower; we’re integrated with the community.”
Chacko has lived that philosophy, tutoring schoolchildren through USC’s Neighborhood Academic Initiative, helping to organize a leadership academy for Foshay Learning Center, and recently creating a weekend soccer camp for local kids. On campus, he has served as a resident advisor for three years.
At the same time, Chacko has managed to excel academically. With a double major in biology and gerontology, a minor in health policy and management, and a near-perfect 3.97 GPA, Chacko has been offered admission to the nation’s best medical schools. He hasn’t made a final decision, but “my top choices are USC or UCLA,” he says. The Keck School is pulling out all the stops to woo Chacko back when he returns from England, offering him a full scholarship.
THIS REMARKABLE young man possesses qualities beyond academic excellence.
There’s his athletic fervor. Until he was sidelined in his junior year by a knee injury (“I tore my ACL – that’s anterior cruciate ligament,” explains the doctor-to-be), Chacko was a starting forward and midfielder on the USC men’s soccer team. Currently recovering from knee surgery last November, he has no intention of hanging up his cleats.
“I want to play in Oxford,” he says. “I’ve got nine months to get back in shape.”
Chacko attributes his successes in large measure to the support of his tight-knit family. Both parents were important role models. His father runs an engineering firm, while his mother is an emergency room physician at Kaiser Permanente.
“With her being a doctor, I got my interest and early exposure to medicine,” he says. “With my dad being a CEO, I got my policy-making interest.”
Chacko doesn’t take role models lightly. He is deeply conscious of his own performance in that capacity. His brother David is now a high school senior applying to colleges.
“I’m doing my absolute best to convince him to come to ’SC,” says the older Chacko. So far, his influence has been profound. David plays soccer, dreams of becoming a physician and ranks as an academic superstar. “He’s done way better than I’ve ever done,” says the proud big brother. “Maybe he’ll win both a Rhodes and Marshall.”
Heads up, USC recruiters.
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To Accompany, Please a Crowd
A TRIBUTE, A FAREWELL, a homecoming – this recital was all three rolled into one. On Oct. 10, Thornton School faculty, students and friends gathered in Bovard Auditorium to celebrate the memory of Gwendolyn Koldofsky – the pioneering accompanist and founder of USC’s program in keyboard
collaborative arts – who died in 1998.
Five performers, all former students of Koldofsky, took to the stage in their mentor’s honor. Opera diva Marilyn Horne, whose return to Bovard was the only local stop on her farewell tour; Thornton School violin professor Donald McInnes; pianists Jean Barr and Martin Katz; and soprano Ruth Golden. The program included a set of English songs, performed by Golden and Katz; Brahms’ Two Songs for Alto Voice, Viola and Piano, performed by Horne, McInnes and Katz; and a five-song set of French pieces, performed by McInnes and Barr.
Longtime musical partners Horne and Katz closed the Sunday afternoon concert with a bang. “The legendary mezzo-soprano sang Falla’s Seven Popular Spanish Songs with great fire and lyric point,” wrote a reviewer for the Los Angeles Times, and was accompanied on piano by Katz, “probably the prime example today of the utterly focused and fearlessly interactive collaboration that Koldofsky espoused.”
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