Anna Macon Corcoran
Yorktown High School
Math has always come naturally to Anna Corcoran. She took intensified algebra in sixth grade and intensified precalculus as a freshman at Yorktown. By the time she was a senior, she’d taken every accelerated math class the school had to offer. She never turned in an assignment late and earned straight A’s throughout high school.
Add in the fact that she is a nationally ranked runner, a member of the French Honor Society and co-founder of Yorktown’s Cancer Club. It’s not surprising that her math teacher and track coach, Kevin Robertson, calls her “a second-to-none individual.”
“Anna was one of the most spectacular students I’ve ever had in terms of intelligence,” Robertson says. “And I know that she will bring it every time she walks up to that [starting] line. Since freshman year, she has been one of the fiercest competitors on the track.”
A sprinter at Williamsburg Middle School who later took up cross-country at Yorktown, Corcoran takes after her father, Daniel, who ran track at MIT. “It was a really fun culture, and everyone was supportive,” she says of her school’s running teams. “One of my favorite parts is cheering everyone on.”
Corcoran graduated with a 4.44 GPA and will run track for Duke this fall, where she plans to study medicine with the goal of becoming a surgeon.
Outside of sports, she raised more than $20,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society—a cause that is close to her heart because her grandmother battled thyroid and skin cancer. At Yorktown, she co-founded Patriots Against Cancer, a club that serves as a support group for students whose families have been affected by cancer. Club members also write supportive letters to hospitalized children who are undergoing treatment, as well as to the nurses and the doctors who take care of them.
At 18, Corcoran is driven, but cautions others against trying to be perfect. She says her perfectionism was a problem for years. “When I was younger, I would set really high goals and it was really hard when I wouldn’t reach them,” she says. “Then I realized a lot of people mess up, and that’s how you grow and become a better person.”