On Monday, Eesha Chona, grade 11, was selected to be a part of the National Speech & Debate Association’s Student Leadership Committee, which represents the needs of debate students and encourages student leaders to advocate for other association members. As a member of the committee, Chona will serve as a role model to other debate students, participate in monthly meetings and engage with social media outlets. “This is an incredible honor and responsibility for a student, especially a junior, as these students represent their peers within the national organization,” said upper school debate teacher Carol Green. Chona is the second Harker student to be named to the committee; the first was Maneesha Panja ’13.
Additionally, the upper school’s speech and debate program was recognized for its extraordinary success by being named to the National Speech & Debate Association’s Pentagon Society, thereby making it one of the top 0.1 percent high school speech and debate programs in the country. Harker earned this honor by receiving more than 500 honorary degrees during the 2013-14 school year. “Honorary degrees are earned through competitive and service related activities,” Green said. “It is not necessarily the number of students who participate but also how successful they are in their efforts.” Harker ranked 15th overall out of 3,000 nationwide member schools.
Harker upper school math students collectively placed first in the country in the 2014 Fall Startup Event math contest, administered by National Assessment and Testing. The test consisted of 100 problems and had a time limit of 30 minutes, requiring students not only to have the skills to solve problems quickly, but also to know which problems to skip.
Students were coached by upper school math teacher Misael-Jose Fisico. The combined placements of all the students led to Harker being declared first place nationwide.
Swapnil Garg was the first-place winner in the ninth-grade division, with classmates Rajiv Movva, Joanna Lin and Shaya Zarkesh earning fifth, 11th and 18th, respectively. In the 10th-grade division, Misha Ivkov placed sixth and David Zhu placed 11th. Harker’s other first-place winner was Richard Yi in the 11th-grade division. Also placing in this division were Allison Wang (fifth) and Lawrence Li (13th). Finally, in the 12th grade division, Ashwath Thirumalai took third, followed closely by Patrick Lin in fourth, while Rahul Jayaraman and Suzy Lou placed 14th and 16th, respectively.
A total of 59 students from Harker’s Class of 2015 were named semifinalists in the 2015 National Merit Scholarship Program, matching the all-time Harker record set in 2012. These students, comprising 32 percent of the senior class, scored in the top 1 percent nationally on the Preliminary SAT, which was taken last year by approximately 1.4 million grade 11 students. In total, 65 percent of Harker seniors scored in the top 3 percent of test takers nationwide.
This year’s semifinalists, listed in alphabetical order by last name, are:
Zabin Bashar, Aadyot Bhatnagar, William Bloomquist, Thyne Boonmark, Stacey Chao, Jason Chu, Anushka Das, Kacey Fang, Vamsi Gadiraju, Eugene Gil, Richard Gu, Arden Hu, Aaron Huang, Allen Huang, Matthew Huang, Vivian Isenberg, Rishabh Jain, Alex Jang, Rahul Jayaraman, Jaewon Jeong, Andrew Jin, Allison Kiang, Rohith Kuditipudi, Hemant Kunda, David Lin, Patrick Lin, Cindy Liu, Shiyu Liu, Suzy Lou, Ethan Ma, Shreya Maheshwari, Nitya Mani, Ayush Midha, Neil Movva, Juhi Muthal, Maya Nandakumar, Nori Madhuri, Sachin Peddada, Archana Podury, Apoorva Rangan, Sahana Rangarajan, Pranav Reddy, Vasudha Rengarajan, Sriram Somasundaram, Agata Sorotokin, Vivek Sriram, Shannon Su, Neha Sunil, Kelly Wang, Madelyn Wang, Serena Wang, Steven Wang, Felix Wu, Helen Wu, Menghua Wu, Stanley Xie, Samyukta Yagati, Andrew Zhang and Kevin Zhang.
Today, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced the semifinalists in the 2015 National Merit Scholarship Program. A total of 59 students from Harker’s Class of 2015 were named, matching the all-time Harker record set in 2012.
This year’s semifinalists, listed in alphabetical order by last name, are:
Zabin Bashar, Aadyot Bhatnagar, William Bloomquist, Thyne Boonmark, Stacey Chao, Jason Chu, Anushka Das, Kacey Fang, Vamsi Gadiraju, Eugene Gil, Richard Gu, Arden Hu, Aaron Huang, Allen Huang, Matthew Huang, Vivian Isenberg, Rishabh Jain, Alex Jang, Rahul Jayaraman, Jaewon Jeong, Andrew Jin, Allison Kiang, Rohith Kuditipudi, Hemant Kunda, David Lin, Patrick Lin, Cindy Liu, Shiyu Liu, Suzy Lou, Ethan Ma, Shreya Maheshwari, Nitya Mani, Ayush Midha, Neil Movva, Juhi Muthal, Maya Nandakumar, Nori Madhuri, Sachin Peddada, Archana Podury, Apoorva Rangan, Sahana Rangarajan, Pranav Reddy, Vasudha Rengarajan, Sriram Somasundaram, Agata Sorotokin, Vivek Sriram, Shannon Su, Neha Sunil, Kelly Wang, Madelyn Wang, Serena Wang, Steven Wang, Felix Wu, Helen Wu, Menghua Wu, Stanley Xie, Samyukta Yagati, Andrew Zhang and Kevin Zhang.
These students, comprising about one-third of the senior class, scored in the top 1 percent nationally on the Preliminary SAT, which was taken last year by approximately 1.4 million grade 11 students nationwide. In total, 65 percent of Harker seniors scored in the top 3 percent of test takers nationwide.
Grade 5 student Yash Narayan recently received the “Best Educational App” award from iOSDevCamp, where he created an innovative app called BullyWatch.
In an event dominated by adult, veteran developers, Narayan was one of only two youth to participate among 500 talented industry insiders from companies including Facebook, Twitter and Apple. The camp (http://www.iosdevcamp.org/) is an annual nonprofit gathering where participants develop applications for iOS (an operating system used for mobile devices manufactured by Apple Inc.) products.
This year’s camp was held at PayPal’s San Jose headquarters over a weekend in late August.
The unique BullyWatch app, which takes the form of a watch, is designed to help stop bullying at school. Oftentimes students cannot express their emotions to a bully and sometimes bullies themselves are unaware that they are, in fact, bullying. Using BullyWatch, when a student feels bullied, they press a button that turns orange, expressing emotions to the bully of feeling bullied. Usually bullies will then back off, but if not, the student can then press the watch for a few more seconds and it will turn red, sending a text message to school staff with the victimized student’s name and location, thus alerting teachers.
“Thousands of kids are bullied in school every day and feel like nobody. My mission in life is to eliminate bullying from schools. I want every kid to feel safe and important. I created BullyWatch to help kids express their emotions to bullies with a click of one single button and get help quickly,” said Narayan.
According to his mother, Ritu Narayan, the iOSDevCamp is the second largest hackathon (an event where programmers meet to do collaborative computer programming) for iPhone- and iPad-based applications. She said Yash had just finished a summer camp at Stanford for developing iPhone applications, and out of curiosity accompanied his father to the hackathon. While there, he decided to pitch his BullyWatch app and subsequently built a working end-to-end product over the course of two days, never expecting to win the prestigious “Best Education Application” award.
Hackathons like the one the Narayans attended provide a venue for self-expression and creativity through technology. People with technical backgrounds come together, form teams around a problem or idea and collaboratively code a unique solution from scratch; the solutions generally take shape in the form of websites, mobile apps and robots.
“Everyone at the competition was very impressed by the courage and persistence Yash showed, and were curious about the school that was nurturing him,” said Ritu Narayan.
Narayan’s app is especially relevant for students these days. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ anti-bullying website, Stopbullying.gov, the majority of bullying today takes place at school, with one in three U.S. students reporting that they have been bullied there.
“We are all so proud of Yash’s recent accomplishments and recognition. He is part of a growing tradition here at Harker in which our students and alumni are exploring the intersection between entrepreneurialism and service to the greater community,” said Chris Nikoloff, Harker’s head of school.
July 23, 2014 UPDATE 2: Congratulations to Vikram Sundar ’14, who earned a gold medal at this year’s International Physics Olympiad in Astana, Kazakhstan! As one of three gold medalists (alongside two silver medalists) on the U.S. team, Sundar was instrumental in helping the U.S. tie for third place overall in the event, in which 86 countries participated.
June 9, 2014 UPDATE: Vikram Sundar ’14, will be one of only five U.S. International Physics Olympiad team members heading to the International Physics Olympiad to be held from July 13 to 21, 2014 in Astana, Kazakhstan! Go Vikram-best of luck in this prestigious event!
May 22, 2014 Four Harker students are among America’s brightest emerging physicists, who will gather at Physics Boot Camp in College Park, Md., later this month, to train and hopefully qualify for the final U.S. Physics Olympiad Team.
Harker students who qualified are Rahul Sridhar, grade 12; Vikram Sundar, grade 12; Andrew Zhang, grade 11; and Kevin Zhu, grade 12. They will be vying for one of the five spots on the team (plus an alternate), who will travel to Astana, Kazakhstan, from July 13-21. There, more than 400 student scholars from 92 nations will test their physics knowledge, competing with the best in the world.
“This must be some kind of record!” said Jason Bardi, director of media services at the American Institute of Physics, which administers the test, runs the boot camp and sponsors the team’s trip to the Olympiad. “It’s tremendous because [Harker] kids are competing with all the huge, powerhouse science magnet public schools on the East Coast, like Stuyvesant and Montgomery Blair, which together have only three members on the team — as well as all the other high schools in the country,” he said.
Over the past 10 years, every U.S. Physics Team member traveling to the international competition has returned with a medal. In 2009, Anand Natarajan ’09 earned a gold medal at the International Physics Olympiad in Mexico. Harker sends a student to the boot camp most years, but has not had four members in recent memory.
The U.S. team is selected from 19 students who have emerged through a rigorous exam taken by 4,277 students. Eleven of the 19 finalists are students are from California; nine of them are from the Bay Area, including Gunn High School, Mission High School, Monta Vista High School, Palo Alto High School and Saratoga High School. The full list is here: http://www.aapt.org/aboutaapt/2014-United-States-Physics-Team-Announced.cfm.
“The competition for a position on the U.S. Physics Team is intense and each student who participated in the 2014 selection process is deserving of recognition,” said Beth Cunningham, executive officer of the American Association of Physics Teachers. “They are the future of America’s success in physics-related fields. AAPT is honored to recognize the exceptional scholars who qualified for the team and to support their further participation in the International Physics Olympiad.”
An integral part of the team experience is the training camp. Most of the students invited to the camp are the top science student in their high school. For many, it is their first chance to meet other students who are truly their peers. The training camp is a crash course in the first two years of university physics. Students learn at a very fast pace. They have an opportunity to hear about cutting edge research from some of the community’s leading physicists. At the end of the training camp, five students will be selected to travel to Kazakhstan for the international competition.
The coaches for the 2014 U.S. Physics Team are Paul Stanley, academic director; Andrew Lin, senior coach; JiaJia Dong and David Fallest, coaches; and Lucy Chen, assistant coach.
The U.S. Physics Team is sponsored by the generous support of private donors and the member societies of the American Institute for Physics.
About AAPT AAPT is an international organization for physics educators, physicists and industrial scientists, with members worldwide. Dedicated to enhancing the understanding and appreciation of physics through teaching, AAPT provides awards, publications, and programs that encourage teaching practical application of physics principles, support continuing professional development, and reward excellence in physics education. AAPT was founded in 1930 and is headquartered in the American Center for Physics in College Park, Maryland.
Earlier this week at the DECA Emerging Leader Summit in Phoenix, Harker’s DECA officers received the “Best Project Model Award” for their presentation on the Harker DECA club’s upcoming Launch2014 event. Taking place Aug. 14-15, Launch2014 is designed to welcome both new and returning Harker DECA members, and offer them a preview of the exciting year ahead. Attendees will have the opportunity to participate in student-run workshops and competitions, hear keynote speakers and engage in a variety of activities. “Few, if any, chapters hold such an event during the summer, and the student and judge audiences were very excited about the innovative idea,” said Juston Glass, Harker business and entrepreneurship teacher. “The judges were especially impressed by the thorough planning, professionalism, leadership skills, and creative thinking that was shown by the officer team not only during the presentation but throughout the entire summit.”
Glass received some recognition of his own for the work he had done with Harker’s DECA team, receiving the 2014 Outstanding New Advisor Award from DECA International.
Last month, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation began announcing this year’s National Merit Scholarship Winners – and 18 Harker graduating seniors have been named thus far.
Winners of the National Merit $2,500 scholarship are Stephanie Chen, Adarsh Battu, Shivani Chandrashekaran, Christopher Fu, Saachi Jain, Divyahans Gupta, Angela Ma, Rahul Sridhar, Aditya Batra, Meena Chetty, Vikram Sundar, Brandon Yang, Albert Zhao, Zareen Choudhury and Varun Mohan. These scholarships are awarded based on criteria such as academic standing, standardized test scores, community service, recommendations by school officials and student essays.
Harker also had three College-Sponsored Merit Scholarship winners. These awards are given by college officials to National Merit finalists who plan to attend the colleges that they represent. Winners of these awards receive between $500 and $2,000 for every year of attendance at their chosen school, for up to four years. Rebecca Chen and Nikkan Ghosh both received scholarships from the University of Southern California, and Benjamin Huchley’s award was courtesy of Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
This story was submitted by Harker lower school math teacher Stephanie Woolsey.
For the seventh time, third grade math students have earned first place in the region in the Continental Mathematics League contest. The region includes 15 U.S. states as well as the countries of Belgium, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
Held in a series of three meets, students individually complete six different questions at each meet, earning one point for each correct answer. The top six scores for each meet become the team score for that month, with the “team” members fluctuating based on who scores the highest each time. This year, two Harker students, Brian Chen and Saavi Kumar, earned perfect scores of 18. Both students earned a medal for being the top-scoring students at Harker, as well as an additional medal for being national winners. Certificates went to Connie Jiang, Michael Pflaging, Stephen Xia and Sally Zhu, each of whom earned scores of 17, missing just one question over the three meets.
This story prepared from information provided by Shannon Hong, grade 10, director of public relations for FPS, and contributed to by Cyrus Merrill, MS FPS Coach.
In late April, more than 40 middle and high school students from Harker’s Future Problem Solving chapter traveled to compete in Laguna Niguel at St. Anne’s School, where they collected seven out of 18 possible top three awards.
The California State FPS Championship is a two-day conference and competition where students dissect potential future problems – in this case, land-transportation issues set in a likely even more densely crowded future urban world – and find creative solutions for these problems. Fourteen Harker teams and two individuals qualified for the event. Of those, six teams collected the aforementioned awards and two teams qualified for the international finals in mid-June, held in Ames, Iowa.
Earning first place in Written Packet Competition and qualifying for internationals in the senior division (grades 10-12) were of Nikhil Dilip, grade 12, and Shannon Hong, Emily Pan and Karen Tu, all grade 10. They all qualified to travel to Iowa for the international event.
Earning first place in the presentation of action plan competition, senior division, and each qualifying to the international event as alternates or part of another team, were Tiara Bhatacharya, Juhi Muthal, Madhu Nori and Sindhu Ravuri, all grade 11. First place in the junior divisions (grades 1-6) was won by Nakul Bajaj, Rakesh Nori, Arun Sundaresan, Jin Tuan and Sriya Prathuri, all grade 6.
Second place honors in the Written Competition were earned by the middle division (grades 7-9) team of Sneha Bhetanabhotla, Neymika Jain, Angela Kim and Evani Radiya-Dixit, all grade 9; and by the junior division team of Christina Bettink, Alyssa Huang, Aditi Khanna and Amla Rashingkar, all grade 6. This team also qualified for the international finals where they will compete with teams from almost every state and from 8 or 9 different countries. Tuan, named above, will also attend and compete at the international event as an individual.
“This year was my first FPS State Bowl. I had so much fun. It was both educational and entertaining. My team and I won second place, which made me a very happy person. I can’t wait to go again next year!” said Rashingkar.
Third Place in the presentation of action plan competition was earned by the senior division team of Dilip, Hong, Pan and Tu. Harker’s middle division team of Trisha Dwivedi, May Gao and Alexis Gauba, all grade 9, also garnered third place.
Kudos also go out to 10th grader Sahana Narayanan who was third place in scenario writing and to 8th grade middle school competitors Jessica Wang, Stephanie Swanson, and Meghana Karinthi who finished in the top 5 in the middle division and who narrowly missed out on qualifying for internationals themselves. Finally, 6th graders Jin Tuan, Arun Sundaresan, Rakesh Nori, Nakul Bajaj and Sriya Prathuri placed first in the presentation of their action plan at the state bowl.
“I loved the whole experience, from eating pizza with the team to performing outside for the parents; it was a rewarding weekend,” enthused Tu.
“California FPS is really a great community and I love meeting all of the new people, from the cute fifth graders to the seniors. Everybody had amazing ideas for the future; we’re living in an age of innovation, and I’m so excited to see what everyone will do!” said Hong.
In the FPS process, students are given a future scene scenario (or as team members like to call it, “the fuzzy”) and must identify 16 problems, select what they think is the major issue, find multiple solutions, then write an action plan – a detailed explanation of how the solution solves the identified problem. Students are then scored on articulation, relevance to the topic and creativity.
Another component of the competition is the skit, or action plan presentation, in which students come up with an engaging way to depict their plans for the general audience, using regular household items, paper towels, aluminum foil, magazines, construction paper and the like to create costumes and props. Students are then scored based on their ability to describe their plan and how it will work and go into effect, their creativity, their use of props and their presentation as a whole.
At the start of the competition, the teams were separated into rooms for the written portion of the competition, followed by lunch. Next, students participated in a teambuilding activity of creating cars made of dry pasta noodles. The future problem solvers were separated into groups of five with members in two divisions and schools.
In the afternoon, the action plan presentation preparation started. Magazines and paper towels flew around the courtyard as students hastily created monocles, magazine skirts and even the odd Marilyn Monroe outfit. The first round of skit presentation began. Later in the day, the affiliate director announced all skits that made it to finals. Six Harker teams, two in each division, were able to compete in finals. At the end of the day, Harker students were able to let loose and relax by neon bowling.
The next day at the closing ceremony, each team that made it to finals performed white being judged by a panel of FPS board members. The affiliate director then announced all the winners for all categories, making a fun and eventful weekend for the Harker Future Problem Solvers.
About The Harker School FPS
Harker FPS is a student-run chapter of California’s Future Problem Solving program, with more than 20 teams and 15 individual competitors from grades 6 to 12. Harker sends more than 40 students to the annual state bowl competition each April, the most in California. In addition, Harker usually sends one to two teams to the annual international conference, allowing the students to broaden their perspectives through competition with winning teams from all over the world. Students may compete individually or in teams of four or by participating in scenario writing.
The teams are coached by history teacher Cyrus Merrill and upper school librarian Meredith Cranston. “We are especially proud of our program that places a great deal of emphasis on the high school students mentoring and training the middle school students themselves,” noted Merrill. “This has been a big part of our program and it is great to see the high school students as excited as the younger teams when the younger ones they trained and coached do well or succeed. Go Harker FPS!”