Tyler MacNiven
| Tyler MacNiven | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Residence | San Francisco |
| Television | The Amazing Race 9 |
Tyler MacNiven is an American filmmaker and reality television contestant.
MacNiven first received attention in 1998 when, while a senior at Woodside High School in Woodside, California, he launched a political-style campaign to supplement his application to Stanford University, where he had wanted to go since the seventh grade. After turning in his early admission application, MacNiven held a press conference in front of Stanford's Bowman Alumni House. For the rest of the week, MacNiven and his volunteer staff of friends and family wore sandwich boards and passed out "Tyler MacNiven for Stanford Student" leaflets after school, among other traditional campaign activities. MacNiven said, "There's so many outstanding people applying to Stanford these days that I actually want to be `out standing' in front of them, to show them that I really do have a passion to go there." Despite having a 4.05 grade point average, playing singles for the varsity tennis team and being student body president at his high school, MacNiven was rejected. He said, "My goal was to make every possible effort, leaving no options untested. That's what the campaign was really about." He was told by the admissions officer that he was noticed and that his campaign was not detrimental.
MacNiven graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a BA in politics, completing semesters abroad in Hungary and on a Semester at Sea. He claims to have been the last student of Tom Lehrer. During a short internship in South Africa, he produced the promotional video for his host NGO.
In 2004, MacNiven walked the length of Japan over 145 days. He created a one-hour documentary of the trek, titled Kintaro Walks Japan. MacNiven cited three reasons for the journey. On his first trip to the country in 2002, he fell in love with the country and had to return. It was on this trip that a friend nicknamed him "Kintarō," which means "Golden Boy," because of his blond hair. Lastly, MacNiven hoped to impress a girl.
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