This fall, over four nights at Attollo HQ, 113 high school students from across Lancaster County sat down for the last and most demanding step of the Attollo recruitment process. Final Interviews asked every recruit to show, in their own words and under real pressure, what they had learned about Attollo’s six pillars: Strong Mind, Competition, Resiliency, Accountability, Sacrifice, and Finish Strong. Then it asked them to prove it with a Rubik’s Cube and a 90-second clock.
Attollo’s Six Pillars
The recruits came from four cohorts. The Community Cohort brought together 28 students from five schools: McCaskey, Hempfield, Lancaster Mennonite, Stone Independent, and Columbia. Warwick sent 24 recruits, Ephrata sent 33, and Conestoga Valley sent 28. Together they make up a class of 113, up from 61 recruits who completed Final Interviews a year ago. That is nearly double the number of students who chose to take on the challenge, and every one of them walked into the room having already put in weeks of work to get there.
Four Cohorts
Each cohort arrived with its own personality, and the interview nights reflected that.
The Community Cohort is a cross-district group by design. Its 28 recruits sit in different classrooms, ride different buses, and cheer for different teams, yet they spent the recruitment season learning alongside one another. Final Interviews were the first time many of them were tested side by side as a single cohort. Ephrata brought the largest group of the season with 33 recruits, and Warwick added 24 of its own. Conestoga Valley returned with 28 recruits, continuing a partnership that was also represented in last year’s Final Interviews.
Community Recruit
WARWICK Recruit
Ephrata Recruit
Conestoga Valley Recruit
What Final Interviews Ask
Final Interviews are built to feel like a real interview, because for many recruits it is the first high-stakes interview of their lives. Recruits move through one-on-one conversations and group assessments, fielding questions about the six pillars and, more importantly, about how those pillars show up in their own lives. It is one thing to memorize that Accountability is a pillar. It is another to explain to an adult across the table what you did the last time you fell short of something you committed to.
113 recruits.
6 pillars.
90 seconds on the clock.
113 recruits. 6 pillars. 90 seconds on the clock.
Then comes the cube.
Every recruit is asked to solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 90 seconds. Few of them could do it when they started. The cube has become one of the clearest symbols of what Attollo asks of its scholars: break a hard problem into steps, practice when no one is watching, stay calm when the clock starts, and finish what you began. Recruits learned the algorithms over the course of the recruitment season, and Final Interviews were where that practice had to hold up in front of an audience.
The People Across the Table
None of this happens without the community members who give up their weeknights to sit across from our recruits. This year, over 60 interviewers from our school administration partners, friends, supporters, and more volunteered their time to make Final Interviews feel serious, personal, and worth preparing for.
Their role goes well beyond scoring. For a high school student, sitting down with a professional who takes your answers seriously is a formative experience. Interviewers asked follow-up questions, pushed recruits to go deeper than a rehearsed answer, and offered the kind of honest encouragement that tends to stay with a young person long after the night is over. We are deeply grateful to every one of them.
What Comes Next
Finishing Strong, Together
A year ago, 61 recruits crossed this line. This year, 113 did, from eight schools and four cohorts that will soon start learning what it means to be part of something bigger than their own building. The number matters because each one represents a student who decided, at fifteen or sixteen years old, that they were willing to do something hard on purpose. That decision is where the work of Attollo begins, and these recruits made it with their whole chest. Our job now is to make sure that the effort they put into Final Interviews becomes the first chapter of a much longer story.
About Attollo:
Attollo is a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering youth through education. By providing mentorship, academic enrichment, and college preparation support, Attollo aims to level the playing field and equip students with the tools they need to succeed in college and beyond. Since its inception, Attollo has helped thousands of students realize their potential and achieve their academic goals.