Augustine Keatinge '26 Recruiting Profile

I am a 16-year-old sophomore (Class of 2026) at The Grauer School in Encinitas, California, and have been doing club swimming year-round with the Rancho San Dieguito Swim Team (Solana Beach, CA) for the last eight years. Born in Paris, France, (I hold dual U.S.-French citizenship) I first began swimming when I was 5 years old and at age 6 passed the swim test to join the Pre-Competitive Squad of the Chelsea & Westminster Swim Club in London. After moving back to the U.S. in 2016, I immediately began swimming for the Rancho San Dieguito Swim Team, starting in the Fish Group and working my way up to the Senior Championship Group where I am today. 

As my times shown below indicate, I am working hard to improve both my Butterfly (100, 200) and Backstroke times (100, 200) while also working on my Freestyle (50, 100, 200) and my IM times. In my most recent meets, I have been chosen to swim in all the freestyle and IM relays for my age group.

At school, I have a 4.37 Weighted GPA for my freshman year with 3 honors courses and I received the President's Award for Academic Excellence in recognition of my academic achievements. I'm currently taking 5 honors courses (my school does not offer AP classes) in my Sophomore Year.  In terms of college studies, I am interested in pursuing a career in mechanical engineering with an emphasis on robotics, aerospace engineering, or quantum computing. I'm still finding out and learning new things about each field, however those are the current forerunners, especially mechanical and aerospace engineering. 

For the last 4 years, outside of school, I have been taking a weekly course in Java programming and expect to take the Java certification exam within the next 1.5 years. In addition, I am currently the lead programmer on our school FTC robotics team and am deeply involved in the programming of our robot, as well as the the design and building for the annual competitions.  At the end of my freshman year, I received a High School Science Outstanding Achievement Award and was named the Most Valuable Player on the robotics team.  

In my free time, I have also designed, built and programmed a robotic arm which I manufactured on a 3D printer using various engineering design concepts. I enjoy working on multiple different projects at once, learning about new concepts pertaining to engineering, and creating new machines or gadgets to solve minor problems or demonstrate concepts to myself. Currently I am in the beginning stages of making a PID control Ball-Balancing machine, finishing/polishing my robotic arm, building a remote control Formula 1 car, and working on the FTC robot for our current season. 

I also very much enjoy acting and am particularly attracted to performing Shakespeare.  At the end of my freshman year, I received the 9th Grade Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre Arts for my role as Johnny Cade in The Outsiders, a play performed at our high school based on the 1967 novel by S.E. Hinton. Recently, I starred as Jay Gatsby in our school production of The Great Gatsby.

I am looking to attend a college with a strong mechanical engineering program where I can become involved in challenging research as an undergraduate and work with professors who are leaders in their fields. I would love to explore various programs and clubs that I could be involved with outside of school, and meet other like-minded people, who enjoy building stuff just as much as I do.