Daughter of two Caribbean immigrants, Daphra Holder has always known what it’s like to work hard to achieve goals. Part of becoming an informed citizen is acquiring some degree of knowledge and education, a point that Daphra’s parents have always stressed.
Community has always been important to Daphra because she believes that it has the power of “eliciting talents that otherwise may have lain dormant.” The majority of her involvement has been in her immediate school community at the Nightingale-Bamford School (NY) where she has advocated for her class for the past two years as president, acting as a liaison between the administration and the student body. She is most involved in her school’s Forensics: Speech & Debate team. As one of the early members of the team, captain of the team for the past two years, and novice director in her sophomore year, Daphra has seen the team grow from its seminal stage as one of the only all-girl teams on the circuit to becoming successful on both the national and local levels. Both positions of leadership have allowed her to develop and hone her interpersonal skills. Her involvement in her school is not purely academic, since she has competed all four years on her school’s varsity badminton team and last year was distinguished with the title of being the third ranked doubles team in her school’s athletic division.
When not in school Daphra enjoys volunteering and has dedicated over five hundred social service hours in her high school career. Her love of community service has reached abroad and included involvement in the program, Experiment for International Living. This enabled her to travel for one month in Belize, to immerse herself in a foreign culture and along with other students from all over the United States, to build an annex to a local school in a small village. Another program that she has devoted a lot of time to is Prep for Prep, a “highly selective leadership development program that incorporates a rigorous fourteen month academic component to prepare students for placement in leading independent schools and continues to work closely with students through high school graduation and beyond.”
Outside of school Daphra has already began to build up a list of notable work experiences: Press Intern for New York’s State Senator Hillary Clinton, a summer internship in the Small Business sector at the financial firm JP Morgan & Chase, a fall internship at Columbia University’s Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (which she got through attending a summer session at Columbia University) and work as a Junior Giving Committee solicitor for Prep for Prep’s eighth annual Alumni Giving Campaign.
Her hard work has also earned her recognition from a wide array of sources: Magna Cum Laude from the National Junior Classical League (NJCL), she has received her school’s citizenship and leadership award (the Nightingale NB), named an Outstanding Participant by the National Achievement Scholarship Program, named a Goldman Sachs Scholar, and ranking first in Doubles C bracket in her leagues Badminton Championships. Her most recent recognition includes being named an AP Scholar by the College Board and a New York Women In Communications, Inc. Finalist. She hopes that her list of accrued scholastic distinctions speaks for her interests and dedication in varied fields.
