Rising seniors Anuj Sharma and Aneesh Chona were crowned national champions in public forum debate at the National Forensic League’s National Tournament on June 15. Recent graduates Akshay Jagadeesh and Aakash Jagadeesh (no relation) reached the top 30. The tournament featured more than 260 teams, and thousands of students across the country competed just to qualify for the tournament.
Harker also won a School of Excellence Award in the Debate category. These awards are given to schools with multiple successful teams.
Harker’s team of Albert Wu, Ramya Rangan, Max Isenberg, and Warren Zhang,. all seniors, made it all the way to the National Economics Challenge final round in New York City before going down in a tight, lightning quick buzzer round to a very worthy opponent from Belmont, Mass.
More than 5,700 students from 33 states participated in this competition, and the team had to win both California and place in the top four in a regional exam to make it to New York for the finals. Then, they finished in the top two of the first round to make it to the final day! At the national final, students completed rounds of testing, worked in teams to solve case problems, and participated in a quick-paced oral quiz bowl in order to compete for the title of national champions.
Advisor Samuel Lepler noted, “The team worked very hard, and it’s the first time Harker has been in the championship match! The kids were great and it was an amazing experience for everyone. First in California and second in all of America … not too shabby!”
Results from this year’s National Mythology Exam arrived recently, and several middle school students earned high marks. Gold medals, earned for scoring 100 percent on the exam, were awarded to Isabella Min, grade 6, Aditya Dhar and Nikhil Manglik, both grade 7 and Elisabeth Siegel and Alison Wang, both grade 8.
Grade 6 students Derek Yen and Rahul Bhethanabotla won silver medals, as did seventh graders Arjun Subramaniam, Manan Shah, Austin Tuan, Karthik Sundaram, Kshithija Mulam, Amrita Singh, Eric Pei, Raymond Xu, Christopher Finsterbusch, James He, Albert Xu and Peter Wu, as well as Kaushik Sankar and Michael Moncton, both grade 8.
Bronze medalists from grade 6 were Praveen Batra, Edgar Lin, Justin Su, Adrian Chu, Olivia Long and Rishi Iyer. Grade 7 bronze winners were Venkat Sankar, Alexander Lam, Brendan Tobin and Jackson Su, while Grace Guan, Rishabh Chandra, John Jerney, Anthony Luo, Arjun Narayan and Gurutam Thockchom won bronze in grade 8.
Harker senior Kathryn (Katie) Siegel was named a 2012 Presidential Scholar this week. Siegel has excelled both academically and in her chosen activities at Harker.
“We are all proud of Katie’s accomplishments and recognition,” said Chris Nikoloff, head of school. “Her achievements across so many domains truly reflect the spirit of the Harker mission. Congratulations.”
Each year the U.S. Department of Education names one male and one female Scholar from each state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. In addition, two students are selected from families living abroad, 15 students are chosen at large and 20 are chosen who specialize in visual and performing arts.
Siegel named Susan King, upper school computer science teacher, as her most influential Harker teacher, and King can accompany Siegel to Washington, D.C., where Siegel will receive her Presidential Scholar medallion and King will be honored with a Teacher Recognition Award from the U.S. Department of Education.
“Katie Siegel is a delightful, energetic, enthusiastic student,” said King. “Without a hint of conceit or meekness, she is able to clearly communicate a problem, precipitate a discussion, consider options, and thank participants for their suggestions.
“I do know that in her collegiate career, there will be professors who will be grateful and delighted that she crossed their thresholds. Katie’s quintessence – her bountiful energy, tenacity, curiosity, intelligence and temperament – makes her a natural born scientist and scholar.”
Siegel is Harker’s fourth Presidential Scholar, and its first female so honored. In 2006, Samantha Fang ’06, was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts, Senan Ebrahim ’08 was named a Presidential Scholar in 2008 and Daniel J. Kim ’09 a Presidential Scholar in 2009.
About 3,000 academic candidates are eligible based on evaluation of their College Board SAT or ACT assessment scores. Students interested in joining the arts portion of the Presidential Scholar program must register for youngARTS, a program by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, which then nominates students as Presidential Scholars.
A group of 20 Harker middle school students attended the local Spring Forensics Tournament at Santa Clara University, held earlier this month. Many of them were competing for their very first time in the event, which predominantly consisted of high school students. The Harker contestants held their own, winning a number of awards, as noted below:
Divya Rajasekharan, grade 7: Rajasekharan took first place in Humorous Interpretation. She has received many awards for this piece; a 10-minute memorized number titled “Beauty is a Beast,” about a spoiled princess. She also received first place in Dramatic Interpretation for a 10-minute memorized piece, titled “The Shape of a Girl,” about bullying.
Lisa Liu, grade 8: Liu competed in several different speech events and was a finalist in each. She competed in Dramatic Interpretation and was qualified to go to the final round. Her piece was a 10-minute topic about illness and family. She also was a finalist in impromptu speaking for which she was given a topic and just two minutes to prepare before speaking for five minutes on the subject. She also received second place in Varsity Humorous Interpretation with her piece, titled “Wayside School is Falling Down.”
Carissa Chen, grade 7: Chen competed in Dramatic Interpretation for the first time and advanced to the final round.
Adele Li, grade 8: Li competed in the varsity division with a topic questioning whether or not targeted killings by the government are justified. She advanced to the Sweet 16 level.
Shivali Minocha and Jasmine Liu, grade 8: Both eighth graders competed in the public forum with the topic “State Mandated Childhood Vaccines” and were undefeated in the preliminary rounds, winning all five. They were the top candidates going into the elimination rounds and made it to the quarterfinals. Liu, in this, her first debate competition, was individually recognized as being the 10th best speaker in the tournament.
Harker’s forensics team had a number of top finishes in March, both locally and nationally. At the California Coast National Forensics League Qualifier, Harker took third place in overall sweepstakes and second place in debate sweepstakes. Aakash and Akshay Jagadeesh, both grade 12, as well as Aneesh Chona and Anuj Sharma, both grade 11, qualified to the NFL National Tournament in Indiana in June. In Duo Interpretation, the team of grade 9 students Madhu Nori and Nephele Troullinos earned fourth place, coming ever so close to pulling off the rare feat of qualifying to nationals as freshmen.
In Humorous Interpretation, Andy Wang, grade 10, earned fifth place but is already the first alternate because one of the students who placed ahead of him is not attending in another event. Nori also reached finals in Original Oratory, earning sixth place honors, and she is now the second alternate to Nationals because one of the students ahead of her has also chosen another event. Several more students made semifinals at the tournament, including Ashwin Chalaka, grade 10, and Sonya Chalaka, grade 12, in Duo Interpretation, Vivek Sriram, grade 9, in International Extemporaneous Speaking, and Steven Wang, grade 9, in United States Extemporaneous Speaking.
Harker had many successful qualifiers to the state championship (held in April in San Francisco). Sonya Chalaka qualified in Impromptu, Andy Wang qualified in Humorous Interpretation, freshmen Nori and Troullinos qualified in Duo Interpretation and sophomore Arjun Kumar qualified in Congressional Debate.
At the JV and Novice Policy and Lincoln-Douglas Debate Nationals Tournament hosted by Woodward Academy in Atlanta, Ayush Midha and Arya Kaul, both grade 9, made it to the top eight policy debate teams in the country before being defeated in quarterfinals.
The largest regular season tournament the team attended during the year was in February at UC Berkeley. This tournament draws thousands of competitors from all over the country. Harker sent almost 200 upper and middle school students to the tournament and ook first in overall debate team sweepstakes and second in overall team sweepstakes!
Berkeley Middle School results included Aditya Dhar, grade 7, who made it to varsity Congressional Debate semifinals. Sophia Luo and Lisa Liu, both grade 8, went undefeated in junior-varsity Policy Debate preliminary rounds and made it to the sweet 16. Liu was also in the top 15 named speakers at the tournament. Panny Shan, grade 8, and Steven Cao, grade 7, made it to the double-octofinal elimination round in junior-varsity policy debate. Grade 7 student Divya Rajasekharan made it to the octofinal level of varsity Humorous Interpretation.
Upper school students at Berkeley produced some of the best in Harker’s history:
William Chang, grade 12, has won an $800 award for an essay contest. Chang was a district finalist in the Elks Most Valuable Student Contest following his performance in the recent state judging.
Reached for comment, Chang, who currently studies advanced journalism and English composition, said he found out about the competition during one of his class meetings. ” I was still in the college application mindset, so I decided to apply for the scholarship as well. I basically wrote about my general interests, extra-curriculars, and community service and leadership roles, and my reasons for pursuing them. It was very much the typical introspective college application essay. It was my first scholarship award and I was really happy to have received it,” he recalled.
The contest was sponsored by The Elk’s National Foundation, a charitable organization which awards 500 four-year scholarships to the highest-rated applicants in the competition. Applicants must advance through local, district and state competitions to reach national judging level.
Harker’s student journalism news website, TalonWP.com, has been awarded the prestigious Gold Crown Award for digital news from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA). According to the CSPA, this year 1,351 printed magazines, newspapers and yearbooks and 182 digital publications bycurrent CSPA members were eligible to enter the competition. Online news media were judged at Columbia University by the Board of Crown Judges in February 2012. Publications were judged on writing/editing, design, content, concept, photography, art and graphics. Only 13 digital news publications received the Gold Crown Award, which has been presented annually since 1983.
This year’s award is only the latest in the past several years of recognition for Harker’s journalism program, which is directed by Chris Daren. TalonWP.com won a Silver Crown in 2011 and a Gold Crown in 2010. The Winged Post won a Silver Crown in 2010 as well. Read more about the Harker journalism program in the current issue of Harker Quarterly.
Two dozen students took the qualification exam for the International Linguistics Olympiad and five qualified for the next round. In addition, last summer, junior Erik Andersen was named a member of the United States’ team which competed in Pittsburgh, Penn. Anderson, whose interest in linguistics began in grade 8, said, “The problems in the invitational rounds are more difficult and require the participants to explain their answers using linguistic theory.” His sixth place finish automatically qualified him to continue to compete in the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad events, most recently in an open round which was held last month for the first time at Harker, in Nichols Hall. The other five qualifiers are Nitya Mani, grade 9; Katie Siegel, grade 12; Rahul Sridhar, grade 10; Ramya Rangan, grade 12; and Kevin Zhu, grade 10, and all will go on to compete against the top 149 students in North America for slots on the final team.
Albert Wu and Ramya Rangan, both grade 12, were recognized at a special assembly Wednesday morning for their accomplishment of being the first pair of students from the same school to receive the Siemens Award for Advanced Placement. Jennifer Harper-Taylor, president of the Siemens Foundation, and Diane Tsukamaki, director of the College Board, traveled from the east coast to attend the assembly and personally congratulate the students and tell the audience of their accomplishments.
Tsukamaki said that eight of the 42 state and national award winners from California since the program’s launch in 1998 have come from Harker, a figure of 20%, “a statistic that should make this school proud.”
A 2009 study of 65 countries, she continued, found that the United States ranked 23rd in science proficiency and 31st in math proficiency. “AP science and math courses and exams are one way that we hope our country can regain its lead,” Tsukamaki said. Students who enroll in AP math and science courses, she said, are much more likely to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics in college.
Harper-Taylor then shared with the assembly just some of Rangan and Wu’s many accomplishments. Amazingly, both took AP classes while they were in grade 8 and both are experienced pianists. Wu was invited to the 2011 Research Science Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is also captain of Harker’s swim team. Rangan, meanwhile, was a semifinalist in the 2011 Siemens competition and represented the US in the 2009 China Girls Math Olympiad, winning a bronze medal.
After receiving their awards, Rangan and Wu shared some words with their fellow students. “None of this would have been possible without the support of the Harker community, the teachers, especially the math and science department,” he said. “The school has really given me so many opportunities to expand my intellectual horizons and also to provide me with avenues to explore and pursue my passions.” He also thanked his parents, who he said blessed him with a curiosity and love of learning.
Rangan said the reason Harker has had such success in this program is “because the school has provided all its students with such a great opportunity to be able to pursue what they want to pursue at the highest level possible for them,” she said. “And I would of course like to thank my parents a lot for giving me the great opportunity [and] the drive to pursue these things.”
March 6, 2012
The Siemens Foundation and the College Board recently announced that Harker students Ramya Rangan and Albert Wu, both grade 12, have each been named the top U.S. female and male AP scholars in the Siemens Awards for Advanced Placement. Rangan and Wu are the only two students in the U.S. to receive the scholarship, and were selected based on their performance in Advanced Placement math and science classes. Each student had the most scores of 5 on AP math and science exams for a male and female student. The last Harker student to receive a national award was Yi Sun ’06. Wu and Rangan each received a $5,000 scholarship for earing the top spots.
“I was excited and honored to receive this award in December,” Rangan said. “I didn’t expect to be one of the national winners, so I was pretty surprised when I was notified about this.”
Wu said he was also a bit honored and surprised to receive the award. “I did not know I had the top aggregate score on AP math and science tests in the entire nation,” he said. “Of course, it would not have been possible without the support of the community around me.”
Awards are given to students each year based on their performance on AP exams in the following courses: Biology, Calculus BC, Chemistry, Computer Science A, Environmental Science, Statistics, Physics C Mechanics and Physics C Electricity and Magnetism. Two winners, one male and one female, are chosen from each state to win a $2,000 scholarship, and two national winners, also a male and female, receive a $5,000 scholarship.
Both students thanked their teachers, families and the Harker community for helping them reach this milestone.
“I received so much support from my teachers. Harker is a place that offers such a large range of courses, and the teachers do a great job of teaching them and caring about the individual student,” Wu said.
“Without Harker’s amazing teachers,” said Rangan, “I really would not have been able to learn the AP coursework to achieve this award. My teachers have done much more than train me for AP exams. They have prepared me for future encounters with their fields, and they have instilled in me an excitement for the subjects they teach.”