Harker preschoolers had a more-than-just-Earth Day moment as they enjoyed the world of beanstalks today. STEM specialist Robyn Stone expounded on the beanstalk they have grown in the preschool farm, while Sara Mccloskey, preschool librarian, created a beanstalk to go with her storytelling. The students made giants and Jacks and other items to hang on the beanstalk. Too much fun!
Tags: alumni-express, eweekly, expressNine Harker students were presented with National Speech & Debate Association Academic All American awards this month. Nikhil Dharmaraj, grade 12; Avi Gulati, grade 11 Anusha Kuppahally, grade 12; Annie Ma, grade 11; Sachin Shah, grade 11; Kelly Shen, grade 12; Nikki Solanki, grade 11; Clarissa Wang, grade 12; and Cindy Wang, grade 12 were honored for their “academic rigor, competitive speech and debate success and personal excellence.”
Fewer than 1,000 students are awarded out of more than 141,000 student members of the National Speech& Debate Association, which puts these ten students in the top one percent of all student members, nationwide.
To earn the award, students must have completed at least five semesters of high school, earned the degree of Superior Distinction in the organization’s Honor Society, achieved a certain level of GPA, and demonstrated outstanding character and leadership. Watch for the full story of this year’s speech and debate team in the summer issue of Harker Magazine. It’s been a great ride!
Tags: alumni-express, eweekly, express, topacademics, topdebateTrack and Field
The Eagle track team recorded 27 season bests in its WBAL meet at Menlo College last week. Anton Novikov, grade 10, won the 100-meter and ran the second leg in the victorious 400 relay. Gio Rofa, grade 11, won the triple jump and anchored the 400 relay to their win. The boys 400 relay moved back into the second-ranked spot in the league, ahead of Sacred Heart Prep. Sara Min, grade 12, was also a double winner in her 100 and 200 runs. In the triple jump, Rofa and Andrew Chen, grade 9, jumped season bests and now rank 1-2 in the league. Brittany Shou, grade 9, set a new freshman Harker record in both the shot put and discus. Alexa Lowe, grade 9, established a new Harker frosh record in both the long jump and the triple jump. Surya Gudapati, grade 12, was a winner in his section in the 400 run. Ayush Vyas, grade 12, threw for second place in the shot put and discus. Natasha Matta, grade 9, came within 0.4 seconds of the Harker record in the 100 hurdles, but set a new freshman school record with her time.
Harker set 14 personal bests in Saturday night’s Soquel Invitational. Zoey Rosa, grade 11, led the team with a win in the 100 hurdles and a second place run in the 300 hurdles, both personal bests. Rofa soared to a new personal record in the triple jump, with a league leading 36’8.5″ jump to win the competition. Chen came in third. Lowe was third in the girls triple jump. Mitchell Granados, grade 12, won his 100 race with a thrilling lean at the finish line with his season best 11.91. Vyas continued his streak of personal bests with his 108’10” discus throw.
The Eagles have the week off before the WBAL Championships next week.
Softball
The softball team dropped both of its games last week, bringing its season record to 4-9. Early in the week, the girls fell to Gunn 10-22 and then dropped a matchup with Palo Alto 6-9. This week, the Eagles travel to Pinewood on Tuesday and host The King’s Academy on Thursday.
Baseball
The baseball team went 2-1 last week to improve to 11-5 on the season. The Eagles started the week with an 8-6 win at Terra Nova with Levi Sutton, grade 10, delivering with two hits and four RBIs. Then the team took care of Westmoor 20-6 with Luke Wancewicz, grade 10, going 3-5 with seven RBIs. Over the weekend, the Eagles fell to Harbor 8-5, but the team is on fire going 8-2 over its last 10 games. This week, it’s a trip to Del Mar on Tuesday, hosting Jefferson on Thursday and at Independence on Friday.
Boys Tennis
The boys tennis team picked up a tough 4-3 win over Pinewood last week to run its record to 10-1. This week, the Eagles face off with league rival Menlo on Monday before beginning the WBAL Individual Tournament on Wednesday.
Lacrosse
The lacrosse team defeated Presentation 10-8 last week before falling to Woodside 5-12. This week the 9-3 Eagles travel to Salinas on Tuesday before hosting Carlmont on Friday.
Boys Volleyball
The boys volleyball team took care of Saratoga 3-0 last week and is now 27-4 on the year and currently ranked second in CCS and eighth in the nation. This week, the Eagles host Los Gatos on Wednesday.
Swim
Harker swimmers head to Sacred Heart Prep this week for the WBAL Championships.
Boys Golf
After a 14-day break, the boys golf team heads into the last week of the season at the Aptos Tournament on Monday followed by a Wednesday matchup with Valley Christian and Thursday battle with Menlo.
NanoSeed, a student-run nonprofit organization dedicated to helping impoverished areas of rural China, will present a special benefit concert on Saturday, April 20, at the upper school’s Rothschild Performing Arts Center.
Featured performers at the event will be pianist Nina Zhou and trumpeter Dylan Girard of the San Francisco Symphony, and harpist Anna Maria Mendieta of the Sacramento Symphony. In addition to these accomplished performers, the concert will feature performances by a wide variety of students singers, instrumentalists and dancers.
NanoSeed, founded in 2014 by students at Harker and other Bay Area schools, provides low-interest loans so that students can further their education and entrepreneurs can found businesses. Proceeds from the concert will be put toward these loans to help bolster the economies of developing regions of China.
The concert will start at 7 p.m. and tickets can be purchased at http://tiny.cc/nsbc. Refreshments will be served prior to the concert. Direct donations to NanoSeed can be made at http://tiny.cc/nsdonate.
Tags: Outreach, topoutreachNanoSeed, a student-run nonprofit organization dedicated to helping impoverished areas of rural China, will present a special benefit concert on Saturday, April 20, at the upper school’s Rothschild Performing Arts Center.
Featured performers at the event will be pianist Nina Zhou and trumpeter Dylan Girard of the San Francisco Symphony, and harpist Anna Maria Mendieta of the Sacramento Symphony. In addition to these accomplished performers, the concert will feature performances by a wide variety of students singers, instrumentalists and dancers.
NanoSeed, founded in 2014 by students at Harker and other Bay Area schools, provides low-interest loans so that students can further their education and entrepreneurs can found businesses. Proceeds from the concert will be put toward these loans to help bolster the economies of developing regions of China.
The concert will start at 7 p.m. and tickets can be purchased at http://tiny.cc/nsbc. Refreshments will be served prior to the concert. Direct donations to NanoSeed can be made at http://tiny.cc/nsdonate.
Tags: Outreach, topoutreachNanoSeed, a student-run nonprofit organization dedicated to helping impoverished areas of rural China, will present a special benefit concert on Saturday, April 20, at the upper school’s Rothschild Performing Arts Center.
Featured performers at the event will be pianist Nina Zhou and trumpeter Dylan Girard of the San Francisco Symphony, and harpist Anna Maria Mendieta of the Sacramento Symphony. In addition to these accomplished performers, the concert will feature performances by a wide variety of students singers, instrumentalists and dancers.
NanoSeed, founded in 2014 by students at Harker and other Bay Area schools, provides low-interest loans so that students can further their education and entrepreneurs can found businesses. Proceeds from the concert will be put toward these loans to help bolster the economies of developing regions of China.
The concert will start at 7 p.m. and tickets can be purchased at http://tiny.cc/nsbc. Refreshments will be served prior to the concert. Direct donations to NanoSeed can be made at http://tiny.cc/nsdonate.
Tags: Outreach, topoutreachUpdated
April 30, 2019
Harker’s National Economics Challenge team, The Harker 10, is once again off to New York City after taking first in the NorCal state finals in early April. Attending team members are Grace Huang, Sahil Jain, Jeffrey Liu and Rakesh Nori, all grade 11. Good luck, Harker 10!
April 16, 20109
Harker emerged first in the NorCal state finals of the National Economics Challenge, held April 3 at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Sixty students entered in the challenge and of those, 11 had perfect scores on the online test. Two teams, The Harker 10 and Clowns, had the maximum score of 900 and both represented Harker in the NorCal finals. The Harker 10 finished first and the Clowns came in a seriously respectable third. The Harker 10 team now moves on to the national semifinals, where the top eight state winners will earn a trip to New York City for a chance to compete on live TV for the national championship!
The Harker 10 are Jeffrey Liu, Sahil Jain, Grace Huang, all grade 11, and Russell Yang, grade 10. Clowns were Arnav Joshi, Evan Cheng, Nikhil Sharma and Rohan Cherukuri, all grade 11. Go Eaglenomics!
Top notch news from the National Debate Coaches Association National Championship! Held at Glenbrook South High School near Chicago, the tournament comprised 188 debate teams from 64 schools from across the nation, and Harker teams finished in the top five in both policy debate and Lincoln-Douglas debate.
In policy debate, Anusha Kuppahally, grade 12 and Maddie Huynh, grade 11, were quarterfinalists. This was Kuppahally’s last debate tournament, and it was the second year in a row that she finished in the top five at this championship. In Lincoln-Douglas debate, Sachin Shah and Quentin Clark, both grade 11, reached elimination rounds, finishing in the top 20 in the nation. Akshay Manglik, grade 10, was named the 10th overall speaker at the tournament and reached the semifinals, finishing in the top three in the nation, an impressive feat for a sophomore. Overall the trip was a great success and the coaches are very proud of the students and all of their hard work. Watch for the summer issue of Harker Magazine, which will include an article on this year’s speech and debate activity!
Tags: alumni-express, eweekly, expess, Top Achievements, topdebateAgata Sorotokin ’15 has been named a 2019 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow for her drive, creativity, intellectual spirit and commitment to the values at the heart of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans support outstanding immigrants and children of immigrants who are pursuing a graduate education in the United States. The organization selects 30 individuals a year, and each receives up to $90,000 toward his or her graduate education. This year’s fellows, 20 of whom are women, were selected from a pool of 1,767 applicants from across the country. Sorotokin will use her fellowship to pursue a master’s degree in music at SUNY Stony Brook. Read her bio, here.
Past fellows include former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy; California Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris; Stanford artificial intelligence leader Fei-Fei Li; Lieutenant Governor of Washington Cyrus Habib; composer Paola Prestini; computational biologist Pardis Sabeti; award-winning writer Kao Kalia Yang; and more than 600 other New American leaders. The list also includes several other Harker alumni: Suchita Nety ’13 and Angela Ma ’14 in 2018, Ashvin Swaminathan ’13 in 2017 and Daniel Kim ’09 in 2014.
Tags: alumni-express, express, Top AlumniSwim
The swim team took on The King’s Academy in the last dual meet of the season last week. Highlights included:
Baseball
Last week, the baseball team split a two-game series with South San Francisco. Early in the week, the Eagles lost a tough 10-11 matchup with the Warriors, with Mark Hu, grade 9, driving in three runs. Later in the week, Harker got its revenge with an 11-8 win over SSF, this time with Max Lee, grade 11, and Nick Coulter, grade 10, each driving in three runs. This week, the Eagles travel to Terra Nova on Tuesday, Westmoor on Thursday and Harbor on Saturday.
Softball
The softball team won both of its games last week against league opponents. First, the Eagles defeated Notre Dame San Jose 13-5 with Cameron Zell, grade 12, exploding for four hits and five RBIs. Later in the week, the Eagles took down El Camino 14-11, this time led by Natasha Yen, grade 10, who drove in three runs on four hits. This week, the girls host Gunn on Monday before traveling to Menlo Atherton Tuesday and Palo Alto on Thursday.
Track and Field
Freshmen Alexa Lowe and Andrew Chen each had outstanding performances in their 100-meter and long jump events on Saturday. Both set personal bests in their long jumps. Frosh Brittany Shou threw a lifetime best in the discus, improving by four feet to 64’7″. Zoey Rosa, grade 11, ran both the 100- and 300-meter hurdles, in which she set a new personal best. The team competes in its last WBAL meet this Tuesday at Menlo.
Boys Tennis
After a few weeks off, the boys tennis team is back in action against Menlo on Monday and Pinewood on Wednesday to finish up the regular season.
Boys Golf
The boys golf team defeated Sacred Heart Prep 199-215 last week with Bradley Lu, grade 12, earning medalist honors with a 35. This week, the Eagles face off with Menlo on Friday.
Boys Volleyball
The boys volleyball team continued its winning ways last week with a 3-0 win over Mountain View. This week, the Eagles travel to Saratoga on Friday.
Lacrosse
Last week, the lacrosse team picked up its fifth and sixth consecutive wins as it defeated Mercy Burlingame 14-5 and Sacred Heart Prep 9-8. The 8-2 Eagles travel to Presentation on Tuesday and Woodside on Friday.