NCSSM Middle School Tour Part III – Preparing for Admission June 14, 2009
Posted by irisia in Educational opportunities, Jack educational, Matthew Educational, NCSSM, jack, matt.Tags: building your resume in high school, college preparation, ncssm
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Part I: The middle school visit day experience was amazing.
Part III: Preparing for Admission
We went to the NCSSM Middle School tour a couple weeks ago and I am SO glad I went. We learned so many things about what we should do not to prepare for college. I honestly never would have thought about these things otherwise. Here they are. They are not in specific order and I didn’t write down the things that were really obvious to me.
1) Need depth of participation in activities. It’s not enough to join clubs. You need to show initiative in the club membership including earning elected positions, running events, or proving that you showed initiative and/or took opportunities to be responsible for others
2) Need to earn honors, awards and recognition either as a team or individual. Basically you need proof not only that you were doing well but that people liked you well enough to acknowledge and affirm your success
3) Keep an activity resume while you are in middle school and high school because there are things that can easily be forgotton that would help put you ahead of another candidate
4) Double up on science and math classes if possible – I NEVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THIS ONE
5) Get to know your teachers. Go visit them after class and after school. You will need 3 strong teacher evaluations. They aren’t going to be able to write a strong evaluation unless they really know you. Get to know administrators as well if possible. You will also need an administrator evaluation.
6) Take advantage of all the science and math opportunities that are available to you in your local community. If you don’t take advantage of what’s available to you locally, why should they give you an opportunity to deepen your knowledge in those subjects at their school?
7) When you apply, you are invited to a discovery day where you get a more in-depth tour, take a math test, and write an essay. The admissions are evaluated by third party and not by the admissions reps at NCSSM.
Here is some general information about admissions to NCSSM.
You compete against other people in your congressional district. The school takes 4-11% from each congressional district.My notes are sketchy here. I have down 100-150 apps and 16-35 accepted. I am guessing this is by contressional districts.
He said the top congressional districts are 4, 3, 5, 10, 1
The value of the education is $27,000/yr.
Apps open late September and close Jan 15th. The app process takes some time so he strongly recommends doing it over Thanksgiving.
NCSSM Tour May ‘09 – amazing – Part II June 1, 2009
Posted by irisia in Educational opportunities, Jack educational, Matthew Educational, NCSSM, jack, matt.Tags: NCSSM adminissions, NCSSM middle school tour, north carolina school of science and math
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We had this incredibly charming and incredibly smart girl who took us on the tour. I think her name was Tiara. She led the tour single handedly. There were probably about 30 people in our group so I was worried that the people in the back would not be able to hear. The commentary on the tours is really important. But, she was great to wait until the entire group was in a small, quiet and confined area before she began speaking with the group.
The first stop was the language building. She mentioned all the language course options available to the kids. When she mentioned Mandarin, I knew the language options were quite advanced. One thing I noted was she mentioned that the language courses were quite a bit more difficult than in traditional high schools. She said students who had taken just one year of high school Spanish might want to start at Spanish 1. I calculated in my mind how many years of Spanish Jack would have by that point and since he would have 3 years in by that point, I thought he would probably be ok to start with Spanish 2 – if he hopefully gets in.
The next stop was the Watts hospital building. She took us to the entrance which serves as the Admissions area. She said the entrance area is perfectly preserved as it was when it was a hospital.
It was beautiful. Here’s a picture of one of the fireplace mantles 
and the detail on the mantle. 
I can’t remember exactly what buildings housed the following places. But, we went to the Art Studio, a science lab, outside her dorm area, and passed an amphitheater.
Even the hallways were amazing. I loved this 3-D helix along one of the hallways.
Here is a peek into the inside of the art studio. It was closed.
Science lab.
Amphitheater
Sound Studio:
The only thing we didn’t see was the swing set. They mention the swing set on the web site and even have it on the map so of course we expected it would be a stop on the tour. I caught a glimpse of it from behind and a girl swinging at the time.
After our tour, we waited a few minutes for our info session.
Howard and I had decided not to goad Matt or Jack about staying to the front or listening closely. We were really happy to see Jack hanging toward the front and listening to the Middle School Director of Admissions as they waited outside for the info session.
We did have the kids semi dress up for the day. Actually we all did. We called the dress code country club casual. I thought the boys looked very handsome.
NCSSM Tour May ‘09 – amazing – Part I May 31, 2009
Posted by irisia in Educational opportunities, Matthew Educational, NCSSM, matt.Tags: ncssm, north carolina school of science and math
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Yesterday we took the day to go to Durham to attend the middle school tour of NCSSM. The school was absolutely amazing. The drive took a little longer than expected – a good 3 hours. Jack, Matt, Howard and I went. We were lucky that Kate was able to stay with Lily because she would have been so bored if she went. And, the back seat of the car is now so tight with the 3 of them. They are grown to the point where they just don’t fit comfortably together in the back seat of the CR-V.
When we arrived at the campus, we had the campus map so we were familiar with the layout and where we should park. But, the campus seemed surprisingly smaller than I expected. When we parked, I was eager to get a picture of the boys on the entrance wall. Of course, they were objectionable to this idea but Howard suggested they just do it and get it over with instead of fighting me on it.
As we walked up to the entrance, there were NCSSM t-shirt clad ambassadors waiting for visitors. I joked that they could probably see the middle-school students coming from a mile away. They escorted us to the Physical Education Center (PEC) to register and start the tour. We were there quite early so we had a chance to walk outside to see the athletic facilities and to peruse the walls of the PEC. Outside, they had tennis courts, ball fields, and soccer fields.
They also had a very tall tower. Matt is in the foreground of this photo to show how tall it was.
When we went back in, for some reason we were surprised that the school had so many sports. Pictures of sports teams lined the wall. Tennis. Soccer. Golf. Basketball. Cheerleading. Wrestling. More. The guide said the only two sports they didn’t have were lacrosse and football – something about having to be a 3-yr high school to have those sports.
Outside the gym, while waiting for the session to begin, we met 2 other families from Union County. They had remembered Matt from Battle of the Books (BOB). But, meeting and seeing the parents yesterday at NCSSM incited my desire to write a blog post on Smarty Parents. See post.
The session began in the Gym. The Gymnasium was really neat. I enjoyed sitting there and looking around at the signage, mascots, etc. After a few minutes, the Director came in and told us the tour would be next and we would return to the gym after the tour. We split up into 2 groups.
