On Feb. 1-2, Harker’s upper school hosted the U.S. Association of Young Physicists Tournament’s (USAYPT) U.S. invitational. The tournament featured students from schools from across the country as well as from China and Tunisia.
In preparation for the tournament, the USAYPT gives students at participating schools four physics problems in February of each year. The teams spend the next year researching and coming up with solutions for the problems, and each team presents its findings at the tournament. A team from another school then attempts to find flaws in the solution.
Judges from universities such as Santa Clara University, San Jose State University and University of California, Santa Cruz, as well as companies such as Apple and Google, compare the students’ methods against a rubric and assign scores accordingly.
Chaima Essid, a student from Pioneer Prep School in Tunisia, entered the tournament thanks to a friend who competed while attending school in the U.S. as an exchange student. “I thought, why not? It would be a great experience,” Essid said. Although she admitted to making some mistakes during her presentation, she nonetheless said she had a great experience and that she was “satisfied” with her performance.
Ashvin Swaminathan, grade 12, was recently named one of two national winners in the 2012 Siemens Awards for Advanced Placement. Each year, this award is given to one male and one female student in the U.S. for exhibiting excellence in AP math and science. On the eight exams used to determine winners of the awards, Swaminathan had the highest number of scores of 5 in the entire country for a male student. For his effort, Swaminathan has been awarded a $5,000 scholarship from the Siemens Foundation.
The senior said he was “happy but humbled” to received the award, and credits his steadfast work ethic and well-maintained sleep schedule to his success. “I don’t postpone work, and in fact, I have managed to stay ahead of the lectures in every course that I have taken at Harker,” he said. “I am firm about getting eight hours of sleep no matter how demanding a course is.”
Swaminathan, the son of middle school science teacher Raji Swaminathan, was also very thankful to his teachers, parents and grandparents for their mentoring and support over the years. “I thank my wonderful teachers at Harker for their help and encouragement all the way through,” he said. “None of my accomplishments would have been possible without the unconditional support of my parents and grandparents.”
In December, Pavitra Rengarajan ’12 earned one of two State AP Scholar Awards for her extraordinary performance on the 2012 Advanced Placement exams. She is one of 108 students nationwide to receive this honor. “I didn’t go into the exams with the goal of receiving any special distinction, so I’m not sure that I had any expectations to begin with. In fact, I only realized I had earned this distinction when Ms. [Jennifer] Gargano [assistant head of school for academic affairs] sent me a congratulatory email!” reported Rengarajan, adding that the majority of the exams she took corresponded to her AP classes at Harker.
Rengarajan, now a freshman at Stanford University, said that her college major will likely be computer science. She noted that Harker has “certainly prepared me well for the academic rigor of Stanford. Courses here seem like a natural progression from Harker. I am starting to realize how fortunate I was to have taken advanced topics classes.”
Last year, Ramya Rangan and Albert Wu, both now graduates, became the first pair of national winners from the same school.
Michaela Kastelman, whose run as DECA Silicon Valley president ends in March, was recently awarded an Applegate DECA Scholarship worth $5,000. She will receive the scholarship, which is sponsored by Hilton Worldwide, at the DECA International Career Development Conference in April.
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During the first week of the new year, 77 students from the Harker Business Club attended the Silicon Valley Career Development Conference hosted by the California state association of DECA, a nonprofit organization that prepares students interested in pursuing careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management.
The conference presented an opportunity for students to receive feedback from judges (one of whom was Head of School Chris Nikoloff) on their business plans and to brush up on their presentation skills and learn how to respond to real-life situations. There was also a competitive element to the event, as students participated in contests that involved role-playing or written tests. In all, Harker students won 14 trophies and several medals, with Harker teams and individuals earning eight top-three finishes.
Andre Jia, grade 12, and Brian Tuan, grade 11, took first place in the team Marketing Communications competition. Saachi Jain and Brinda Perumal, both grade 11, were the second-place team in the Business Law and Ethics event; juniors Allison Sun and Emily Lin earned second place in Sports and Entertainment Operations Research; Emily Wang, grade 12 took second place in individual Business Finance; Jennifer Dai and Katie Gu, both grade 11, took third in the same event; seniors Tiphaine Delepine and Rachel Yanovsky took third in Travel and Tourism; Kevin Susai and Rohit Agarwal, both grade 12, placed third in Sports and Entertainment Marketing; and senior Neeli Gadagottu finished third in Restaurant and Food Service Management.
The event was a special one for student and current DECA Silicon Valley President Michaela Kastelman, grade 12, who gave a heartwarming farewell speech to the attendees. Her tenure as president will end in March, as she graduates this year. Meanwhile, Sophia Luo, grade 9, ascended to a new role at DECA Silicon Valley after being elected secretary and treasurer for next year.
“I think that Harker was really successful, especially since a lot of our chapter is made up of freshmen and sophomores,” Delepine said. “Of course, we are still learning and we hope to do better at States!”
Delepine noted that the regional event was viewed primarily as an opportunity to train for the state competition in March, where the top three written test competitors and top four role-players will head to the international conference in April.
Sarah Howells ’12, now a freshman at Princeton University, recently won first place in the Churchill Research Paper Competition sponsored by the University of Minnesota’s Churchill Center. “The history department is delighted to congratulate Sarah on winning first prize in the Churchill Research Paper competition,” said Harker history department chair Donna Gilbert.
Howells is the contest’s first winner, and it’s not the only first that she has earned for the paper, titled “Winston Churchill’s Efforts to Unify Britain from 1940-1941.” It was also Howells’ submission to earn a grant from the Mitra Family Endowment, which was established last year by Harker parents Samir and Sundari Mitra (Shivani, grade 11). Howells went on to become the first Mitra Scholar for her entry.
“I was pretty surprised, since this being the first year of the competition I was not sure what the expectations were,” Howells said. “I would like to thank the Mitra family for supporting humanities research at Harker, Ms. [Donna] Gilbert, Dr. [Ruth] Meyer and Ms. [Susan] Smith for helping me with research and making the Harker history department a strong supporter of independent work, and Ms. [Julie] Wheeler for convincing me to apply for the grant in the first place.”
Several Harker students successfully auditioned for roles in an upcoming independent film being produced by the Bay Area-based Silk Road Films. Auditions for the movie, to be titled “Family Party,” were held Dec. 4-5 at the upper school campus. With filming scheduled for April, during Harker’s spring break, the film will feature students Vishal Vaidya, grade 10, as Nick; Apurva Tandon, grade 12, as Arti; Jai Ahuja, grade 10, in the role of Sahil; Rahul Nalamasu, grade 12, playing Sanjay; Cecilia Lang-Ree, grade 12, as Tanya; and Alice Tsui, grade 12, as Amanda.
Basketball The grade 5 junior varsity B1 boys basketball team beat Sacred Heart in the Championship game of the WBAL tournament 26-21 Wednesday. They won the league with a 7-0 record and also won the championship tournament to finish at 9-0 overall.
The JVA boys basketball team took second in their WBAL bracket, losing to Sacred Heart in the Championship game 10-18. They finished 8-1 in league play and second in the tournament to finish at 9-2.
Basketball Boys varsity basketball went 1-2 in the Lynbrook Tournament last week, scoring a blowout 72-28 victory over Lynbrook to salve the pain of two nail-biter losses to Mills and Santa Teresa; the boys fell to Santa Teresa 41-40 on a last-minute shot as time expired.
Girls varsity basketball opened their season by cruising to the finals of the King’s Academy Tournament with victories over Prospect 48-32 and Lincoln 61-31. In the final round, the girls fell to Burlingame High 85-52 despite senior Priscilla Auyeung’s 21 points.
Soccer Boys varsity soccer blanked Gunderson in their season opener last week, 3-0, behind goals from Omar Hamade, Oisin Coveney, both grade 9, and Sumit Minocha, grade 12. The JV squad defeated SLV 6-1 to even their record at 1-1, as Neil Kishore, grade 10, scored a goal and had four assists.
Girls soccer went 1-1 last week after picking up a 2-0 shutout victory over Pacific Collegiate, with goals by Nikita Parulkar, grade 10, and Sondra Leal Da Costa, grade 12. Days before, the girls had dropped their season opener by a margin of 2-1 against Notre Dame, with Parulkar scoring the lone goal for the Eagles on a Leal Da Costa assist. Next, the team faces Mills High this Saturday in the Burlingame Tournament.
Wrestling
At the Fremont High Tournament on Saturday, wrestlers Danny Wang, grade 12, and Darian Edvalson, grade 11, earned a victory and two losses apiece. They face Milpitas High next week.
Water Polo
Congratulations to water polo players Keri Clifford and Karan Das-Grande, both seniors. Clifford was selected as a first team, division II All-CCS honoree and a second team division I honoree. Das-Grande recieved honorable mention on the second team for the boys, division II. This is a tremendous honor and excellent way to cap off their Harker water polo careers.
Dec. 4 marks a historic moment for The Harker School. When The Palo Alto Military Academy and Miss Harker’s School for Girls merged and moved from Palo Alto to San Jose in 1972, the Nichols family took enormous risks in settling the school’s new home in San Jose. More than four decades later, the San Jose City Council unanimously approved The Harker School’s use permit of the 4525 Union Avenue property. “This historic vote moves Harker one step closer towards owning all three of our campuses, and securing the City of San Jose as the permanent home of our wonderful community,” said Chris Nikoloff, head of school.
Harker plans to open a preschool in the fall of 2013 on the Union campus and later, as part of a broader strategy of unwinding from the Blackford lease, move the lower school program to Union and the middle school program to Bucknall. At that time the school will own all three of its San Jose sites, each uniquely dedicated to the needs of its students.
“An effort like the securing of the Union Avenue campus is not possible without the help of a great team and the support of the community. I want to thank everyone in the Harker community who leaned in to make this historic accomplishment a reality,” said Nikoloff.
Khaled Hosseini, author of best-selling novels “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” greeted more than 20 attendees who bought special tickets for a reception prior to Hosseini’s appearance at the Harker Speaker Series on Friday evening. In addition to being able to meet and chat with the author, the guests also received a personalized copy of one of Hosseini’s novels as well as admission to the main event.
Harker’s honor council hosted an honor and ethics conference that brought together representatives from the Pacific Collegiate School, San Francisco University High School, Pinewood School and the Bay School of San Francisco to discuss various scenarios and find out what issues schools need to address. The Harker students came up with case studies and presented them to the other schools’ representatives. Case studies included information on tests revealed during conversations between periods, plagiarism and theft of unattended school-related items such as books and calculators.
Evan Barth, dean of upper school students, said the scenarios presented in each case study were primarily used to generate feedback from each school and spur discussion in order to discover the issues that schools were having with ethics violations. “It’s for the students to have ideas to bounce off of each other,” he said.
Harker athletes had the unique opportunity to meet two Olympic gold medalist swimmers on Friday, when three-time gold medalist Ambrose “Rowdy” Gaines and silver and gold medalist Cullen Jones spoke to students at the Singh Aquatic Center at the upper school campus just before a USA Swimming Foundation event held at Nichols Hall.
Gaines, who won three gold medals at the 1984 summer games in Los Angeles and now works in television as a swimming commentator, shared his story of perseverance and determination. He began swimming competitively at age 17 after being denied spots on his high school football, baseball, basketball, golf and tennis teams.
“I am living proof it’s never too late to achieve your dreams,” he said, reminding students that setbacks are a part of the journey, such as when he broke a world record in 1980, only to find out the next day that the United States would be boycotting that year’s Olympic games.
Undaunted, he pressed on, practicing rigorously six days a week, winning SEC and NCAA titles and qualifying for the 1984 games, where at age 25 he became the third-oldest Olympic swimmer to date to win a gold medal.
After Gaines spoke, Jones took his turn to speak to the students about his experience at the 2012 games in London, touching on his experience staying at the Olympic Village and his daily regimen, which consisted of a near-constant cycle of training and nutritional intake.
Aside from winning the silver and gold, highlights of the London games for Cullen also included meeting athletes such as NBA stars Dwyane Wade and LeBron James as well as tennis legend Serena Williams.