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Tag: Top Achievements

Three students win grand prizes at 2019 Synopsys science fair

Juniors Cynthia Chen and Allison Jia and senior Ruhi Sayana were all grand prize winners at the Synopsys Silicon Valley Science & Technology Championship in March, each earning a trip to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, held in May in Phoenix. Junior Aditi Ghalsasi was a grand prize alternate winner, which earned her a trip to the California State Science Fair. Nearly 40 Harker students were winners this year; the Synopsys championship website contains a list of all middle and upper school winners.

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Middle school speech and debate team overwhelms at Tournament of Champions

By Jenny Achten, Speech and Debate Department Chair, Grades 6-12

The middle school speech and debate team had an outstanding weekend at the Middle School Tournament of Champions, hosted by the University of Kentucky on May 11-12.

The team won first place in overall sweepstakes for the best performance at the tournament by any school. Shoring up this award were the top speaker in Lincoln-Douglas debate, Ansh Sheth, grade 7, and top speaker in policy debate, Deeya Viradia, grade 8. Arjun Krishna, grade 7, Krishna Mysoor, grade 7, and Mir Bahri, grade 8, also won debate speaker awards. 

Harker had a three-way closeout of the final round in Lincoln-Douglas debate with Alexander Lan, grade 8, Kabir Buch, grade 7, and Mysoor sharing the championship. Joe Li, grade 7, and Sheth also cleared in Lincoln-Douglas. The policy team of Bahri and Viradia made it to semifinals. Additionally, Arissa Huda, grade 8, was in the final round of extemporaneous speaking.

The coaches are all thrilled with the results of our students’ hard work! A special thanks to Shania Hunt, middle school debate teacher, who did a fabulous job of organizing this large and complicated trip. The students were not only well prepared, but were safe and had fun. 

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Senior named finalist in Beach Blanket Babylon scholarship competition

Senior Ellie Lang-Ree was recently named a finalist in the Steve Silver Foundation and Beach Blanket Babylon “Scholarship for the Arts” competition. This annual contest for Bay Area high school students awards winners in three categories – acting, dancing and singing – with a $15,000 scholarship to put toward their college education. Lang-Ree, a finalist in the singing category, will perform on June 3 at San Francisco’s Club Fugazi for a panel of judges, which includes Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman, actor Will Durst and opera composer Jake Heggie. Congratulations and best of luck!

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Swimmers shatter CCS records, lacrosse wins second consecutive league title as other sports head into CCS

Swim
A huge congrats to the five Eagle swimmers (Matthew Chung, Jason Kwok and Rhys Edwards, all grade 10, Ethan Hu, grade 11, and Alex Yu, grade 12) who represented Harker at the CCS Championships on Saturday. The boys took home a third place CCS finish as a team thanks to these amazing finishes:
 
– The 200 medley relay team (Chung, Kwok, Hu, Edwards) finished first, setting a new CCS record.
– Hu took first in the 200 IM and the 100 fly, setting CCS records in both events.
– Kwok took second in the 100 breast and 34th in the 50 free.
– The 200 free relay team (Chung, Kwok, Hu, Edwards) took second.
– Chung finished third in the 200 IM and 500 free.
– Edwards was ninth in the 100 free and 10th in the 50 free.
– Yu took 13th in the 500 free.
 
The boys will compete at the State Championships beginning this Friday at Clovis West High School.
 
Boys Volleyball
The boys volleyball team finished the regular season with a 29-5 record and ranked No. 12 in the nation and No. 2 in CCS after falling to Monta Vista (No. 7 in the nation, No. 1 in CCS) 0-3 and defeating Los Altos 3-0. The Eagles were rewarded with a No. 1 seed in the CCS D3 bracket, and open at Sacred Heart Prep on Tuesday night.
 
Boys Tennis
The boys tennis team won its opening CCS match with Aptos 7-0, but was knocked out of the playoffs with a 0-7 loss to No. 1 seeded Menlo. However, the doubles team of Ramanand Vegesna and Mihir Sharma, both grade 11, qualified for CCS and opens play against Carmel on May 14.
 
Lacrosse
Last week, the lacrosse team defeated Notre Dame Belmont 18-3 and Priory 17-7 to win its second consecutive WBAL-Skyline Championship. The ladies finished the regular season 14-3 and ranked eighth in CCS. The Eagles host Aragon in the quarterfinals of the WBAL Championships this Tuesday at 5 p.m. on Davis Field.
 
Track and Field
At the WBAL Track & Field Championships last Friday, Alexa Lowe, grade 9, won the league championship in the triple jump, upsetting four others seeded ahead of her. Gio Rofa, grade 11, placed second in the triple jump and Ayush Vyas, grade 12, placed second in the shot put with a three-foot personal best. All three will be competing in next Saturday’s CCS trials.
 
Boys Golf
The boys golf team took third place in the WBAL Championships last week. The Eagles play in the CCS regionals on Tuesday at Laguna Seca Golf Ranch.
 
Baseball
The baseball team went 1-1 last week to bring its season record to 13-8. In a 15-4 win over Crystal Springs Uplands, Zach Hoffman, grade 12, and Levi Sutton, grade 10, each drove in two runs. Later in the week, the Eagles fell to South San Francisco 3-7. This week, the team hosts Thomas More for Senior Night on Monday and finishes off the regular season on Tuesday at Westmoor.
 
Softball
The softball team went 2-1 last week to improve to 6-12 on the season. The girls started the week with a tough 1-23 loss to Fremont, with Emma Crook, grade 9, driving in the lone run. The Eagles bounced back with a 17-0 win over Mercy SF, with Cameron Zell, grade 12, driving in four runs and Brooklyn Cicero, grade 9, adding three more RBIs. Taylor Lam, grade 12, threw 3 innings of one hit, six strikeout ball before the mercy rule was applied. The Eagles ended the week with a forfeit win over Crystal Springs Uplands. This week, the Eagles finish their season traveling to Mercy Burlingame on Tuesday before Senior Night on Thursday against ND San Jose.
 
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Harker speech and debate team has a great showing at Tournament of Champions

Harker students performed very well at the Tournament of Champions last weekend. This prestigious speech and debate tournament, hosted by the University of Kentucky, is open to students who have performed well at varsity invitationals, and Harker qualified a number of students.

Junior Avi Gulati won first place in original oratory, an outstanding achievement! Senior Haris Hosseini was third in oratory, and Nikki Solanki, grade 11, was third in program oral interpretation. Senior Alycia Cary was in the semifinals of oratory. Additionally, Nakul Bajaj and David Feng, both grade 11, and Andrew Sun, grade 10, all made it to the semifinals of congressional debate.

Finally, Akshay Manglik, grade 10, and Sachin Shah, grade 11, qualified to compete in Lincoln-Douglas debate. Both junior Prerana Acharyya and Solanki (who qualified in two events!) qualified to compete in dramatic interpretation. It was thrilling for the whole team to see so many Harker Eagles do so well at the tournament!

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Two students qualify for U.S. Physics Team

Freshmen David Dai and Rishab Parthasarathy were recently selected to be two of 20 high school students on the 2019 U.S. Physics Team. Each year, the American Association of Physics Teachers selects team members from the top scorers on the USA Physics Exam, who are then invited to a boot camp at the University of Maryland, College Park. Five of these students will then be chosen for the traveling team for the International Physics Olympiad in Tel Aviv, Israel.

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Updated: Harker takes first in NorCal Econ Challenge, will travel to NYC for finals

Updated
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!

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Harker speech and debate team finishes in top 5 in policy and Lincoln-Douglas debate championships

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!

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Upper school journalism picks up department-best three CSPA Crown Awards

Last month, Harker journalism won three Crown Awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, a first for the program “and an extremely rare occurrence for any high school,” said journalism teacher Ellen Austin.

The Talon yearbook’s Gold Crown – its first Crown win in Harker history – was one of just 18 Gold Crowns awarded to high school yearbook programs nationwide. The Winged Post, the upper school newspaper, was one of 11 high school newspapers to haul in a Gold Crown, while the online news site Harker Aquila received a Silver Crown. All publications were awarded for work they did during the 2017-18 school year. Nearly 1,200 student publications were evaluated for this year’s Crown Awards.

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Senior earns State Department language scholarship, Congressional Award

Senior Logan Bhamidipaty was recently awarded a scholarship from the U.S. Department of State’s National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y), which funds a full academic year abroad for students studying languages judged as important by the State Department. Following graduation, Bhamidipaty plans to take a gap year to study Mandarin in Beijing before matriculating to Stanford.

Bhamidipaty also was recognized last month with a Congressional Award for his volunteer work with the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, and as an immigration intern with Catholic Charities USA. He also was honored for his devotion to becoming fluent in Mandarin, and for studying the history and culture of Japan’s Kansai region during the country’s Edo period. Bhamidipaty is scheduled to travel to Washington, D.C., in June for a special ceremony attended by awardees and members of the U.S. Congress.

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