This Tanque Verde High senior is headed to Harvard next fall

Christopher Altizer, 17, has wanted to go to Harvard University since he was in fourth grade.

A family friend brought back a Harvard hoodie from a trip to Boston and told him stories about the university’s campus. Altizer said he was immediately intrigued.

“I didn’t really know much about it at the time, but then junior high came around and I really locked down,” the Tanque Verde High School senior said.

It was all seriousness from there. He said he made deliberate academic choices with the goal of attending Harvard one day.

About a week and a half ago, Altizer was sitting in a coffee shop when he logged into his application account, which said, “Congratulations.” The teen from a small Tucson high school was accepted early into Harvard University and will be heading to Boston next fall to attend on a full scholarship.

All of the feelings flooded in when he got the news, he said. “I got super grateful and emotional about what I’ve done at the high school and the people who have gotten me here.”

His mother, Carol Altizer, said she taught him to set high goals for himself, but other than that, he didn’t need help staying motivated, though the senior credits the people around him, including family, friends and teachers, for supporting him.

“He is a highly motivated leader,” she said of her son.

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When the soon-to-be Harvard student was in junior high and choosing a high school, he worried that going to his home school, Tanque Verde High, instead of a bigger school with more advanced placement offerings would hurt his chances at getting into Harvard.

He’d gone to Tanque Verde schools since preschool and had many friends there, but for a little while, highly renowned schools such as University High School enticed him, she said. So he took the matter into his own hands and wrote to the Harvard admissions office seeking advice.

Someone wrote back and told him no matter the size of school, he should take advantage of every opportunity the school has to offer and participate in extracurricular activities, she said.

Altizer took that advice to heart. He is a drum major in the school’s marching band, student body president for two years in a row and participates in various school clubs.

“My passion is school, student council and student government,” he said. “I was really motivated to help others and create school functions, get people involved.”

At the school, Altizer is basically “Mr. Tanque Verde,” said A.J. Malis, the principal.

Obviously the senior’s got the grades, but above all, he is deeply involved in the school and its community, he said. “The part that makes Chris so unique is that he can get along with anyone.”