Chatsworth High’s Grant Chang hits the MIT jackpot
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- Chatsworth High senior Grant Chang learned of his MIT acceptance during a volleyball tournament in Las Vegas after his coach briefly allowed him to check his phone.
- The STEM student maintains a perfect A grade record and excels as an athlete, winning a state basketball championship ring and two city volleyball titles.
- Chang becomes the fourth Southern California volleyball player accepted to MIT and joins three others from Redondo Union as Chatsworth pursues another playoff championship.
During a volleyball tournament trip to Las Vegas in March, Chatsworth coach Sina Aghassy confiscated all his players’ cellphones and put them in his backpack to make sure they focused on their sports assignment — with one exception.
Anyone waiting to learn if they were accepted to a college could briefly have access to their phone.
The players were standing in a hallway listening to their coach evaluate their performance when Grant Chang, the team’s star 6-foot-6 senior, decided to open his phone to check whether he got a message from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“I opened it up a couple minutes before it was supposed to come out and all I see is confetti,” he said. “I was in shock and all I did was make a noise.”
Aghassy, not knowing what the noise meant, said, “Can you quiet down a bit?”
“Five minutes into his talk, I started breaking down crying. I got overwhelmed by emotions,” Chang said.
Teammates didn’t know if it was good or bad news. Then Chang told them the good news: “I got into MIT.”
“Everyone breaks out cheering and going wild,” he said.
Chang had kept it a secret that MIT was his dream school. He was so disappointed in the fall when he was put on the deferred list for admission that he didn’t think he’d get in.
He becomes the fourth volleyball player from Southern California to be accepted to MIT, joining three others from Redondo Union who he knows.
He’s never received a grade other than A in Chatsworth’s magnet program focused on science, technology, engineering and math. He’s such a math whiz that he took geometry in eighth grade and finished all his math classes, from chemistry to calculus, last school year. This year he’s focused on Advanced Placement Physics.
He already owns three rings — one playing with Alijah Arenas for Chatsworth’s state championship basketball team and two for City Open Division volleyball titles. Chang is going for a third volleyball ring this season as Chatsworth is expected to be the No. 1 or No. 2 seed for the playoffs. He gave up basketball for volleyball, a sport he didn’t start playing until his freshman year.
“I love the sport. I always put in extra work,” he said.
Unlike the Redondo Union trio, he doesn’t surf and plays no instruments, even though his Redondo Union friends are looking for a drummer to start a band. Chang knows math formulas, but drumming? “I cannot,” he said.
“In college, I’m going to learn how to drum so I can join the band,” he joked.
His size and improving skills make him a good prospect. He seems all set except for dealing with cold weather.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been in weather under 60 degrees for two days,” he said. “My parents said, ‘Good luck,’ they would send me some hot Korean soup during tough days.”
Asked how he became such a good student, Chang said, “My mom and dad always put me in academic settings trying to get me to learn as much as possible.”
B’s on a report card are not allowed in his family.
He offered a rousing endorsement for his educators at Chatsworth.
“All the teachers put their heart and soul into us,” he said.
As for his volleyball coach, he appreciated Aghassy giving access to his phone for just a few minutes and apologized for disrupting his speech.
What a memory it will be for years to come telling the story of being in Las Vegas and learning he got into MIT.
It was his jackpot worth more than money.
