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.
Matty’s Battle of the Books competition March 13, 2009
Posted by irisia in Matthew Educational, matt.Tags: battle of the books, battle of the books t-shirt, context clues, final competition, north carolina, strategy
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Today was Matty’s BOB competition. I went and there was one other parent there. His team did not fare as well as it did last year. They came in 2nd last year and this
year they were not in the top 3. They really missed a lot of questions. But, I know Matt had fun participating and I’m sure he will do it again next year. If they will let the other parent and I get involved, I think it would be good. The winning team used a lot of strategy and was very well prepared. For example, the other mother and I were noticing that even without having read the book, there were so many context clues in the questions. One question mentioned fried bananas specifically. One of the books was Cuba 15 about teenagers in Cuba. Another book mentioned a barbed wire fence with wooden slats which was the book about the Shoah – Striped Pajamas.
They designed adorable t-shirts. They said:
- Book – $19.99
- Transportation: $5.00
- t-shirt: $10.00
- Bandaids for Paper Cuts: $2.79
- Joy of reading: Priceless
Here is Matt at the competition:
Here is the team at the competition
Battle of the Books gets serious – The practice competition March 4, 2009
Posted by irisia in Matthew Educational, matt.Tags: battle of the books, childrens book clubs, kid book clubs, middle school competitions, reading competition
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Kate and I went to see Matt’s practice Battle of the Books competition yesterday. He did great and it was so much fun to watch. I wasn’t sure how the whole thing would go down with answering the questions. I guess I had envisioned something more similar to a spelling bee where one person is at the podium at a time. But, it was really cool. Each school got to compete as a team. They sat at a table together and could confer with each other before they answered each question. I took video of each of Matthew’s questions. The whole name card thing was interesting. When it was each student’s turn, that student would turn their name card up so the person asking the question could call their name. Here are the videos:
Question 1: “That is correct”
Question 2: “that is correct”
Question 3: “that is incorrect”
Question 4: “that is correct”
Here’s a great picture of Matt:
Here’s a great picture of the 2 teams. Matt’s team is on the left.
What is this gifted stuff all about? February 16, 2009
Posted by irisia in Matthew Educational, matt, musings.add a comment
Matthew asked me yesterday what the definition of gifted was. I told him that I could go look but it might be a fun challenge to try to come up with one first and then see how close it was. I asked him why he was wondering this. Matt has always been in the gifted classes. This year, his AIG English is being taught by a teacher that is just starting her training to be a gifted teacher. When I went to visit her 7th grade classroom, she had all these sticker charts with nickel-sized stickers next to each name. Matthew said she will also periodically lose her train of thought and ask them kids if they like her new shoes or her new hairdo.
For some reason, probably because I’m a thankless snob, it bothered me that the teacher was using stickers and other tools for a 7th grade AIG class. I made an off-hand comment to Matt – “she just doesn’t understand the gifted mind”. Matthew knew I wasn’t being serious but he and I also knew there was a lot of truth to my supposedly joking comment. So, later on, I ran into one of Matthew’s classmates who has this same teacher. I asked him what he thought of the teacher. He said he liked her. I asked him if he thought the use of stickers and such as juvenile for this class. He said “No, I like them. It’s a chart for the items we’ve turned in and it helps me remember to turn everything in”. So, I will say it again. I am a snob, snob, snob. I have wanted to write this post for a long time but I fear that if I actually put my snob-dumb into words that G-d will punish me for not appreciating that I am “gifted” with such smart children. But I do fully appreciate it. Ergo, I need to lost the snobbiness. OK, I think I’ve beat myself up enough.
OK, so here goes. If I was to come up with a definition of what I think gifted is, here is what I think…
Gifted: a person who has strong intelligence, powers of reasoning or exceptional ability to learn in the areas of subject-area studies, analytical and reasoning abilities, memorization skills, oh heck – I don’t know. I guess I will have to look it up.
Matthew designs a custom t-shirt for Battle of the Books February 9, 2009
Posted by irisia in Matthew Educational, Matthew creative, matt.Tags: battle of the books, battle of the books t-shirt, cafe press, cafe press custom t-shirt, t-shirt design
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Matthew took it upon himself to design a t-shirt for battle of the books. He came up with such a clever design. So, I let him go to CafePress and have the t-shirt made. When we got there, we also decided to do a back of the t-shirt with B.O.B. for Battle of the Books. With 2-sided printing on an organic cotton men’s t-shirt with shipping was only $25. I had him earn the money buy washing my car. He did an amazing job. As soon as he showed me, we went right in and checked out our t-shirt that was waiting in our card. TG for cookies!!
Here is his front artwork.
When Howard saw it, he had lots of suggestions. But, I tried to be like American Idol and say Matthew “made it his own”. And that was true. It was pure 100% Matt. The only thing we had to do was change the font of the ready, set, read because it was too hard to read.
We ordered the shirt yesterday on a Sunday and we already received a confirmation today that it has shipped. I’m really, really impressed with them. Unfortunately I think it takes 5 days to get from coast to coast.
Here is his artwork for the back of the shirt:
Matthew makes the 24 math contest again January 29, 2009
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Matthew is so excited that he made the 24 math contest. About 150 people tried out and 33 made it – and Matthew was one of them!! They are going to practice every other Tuesday.
Here are the details about the 24 game:
Participants play the 24 Game, which involves a deck of cards, each showing four whole numbers between 1 and 9. When presented with a card, the players strive to be the first to combine the four numbers to make 24 using only addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division. All four numbers must be used once and only once, but it is not necessary to use all four operations. Many cards have more than one solution. The game can be surprisingly challenging.
I’m glad the kids got math smarts from their dad!
Matthew finishes Romiette and Julio and again not impressed November 18, 2008
Posted by irisia in Matthew Educational, matt.Tags: North Carolina Battle of the Books, Romiette and Julio
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Matthew finished another Battle of the Books book and was not thrilled with it. I actually had to goad him to finish this book. He would read it in between other books he was able to get from the library so he was definitely not thrilled with it. He said it was about young people in love and they were of different ethnicities. I think he said their love was challenged by other students who eventually tried to drown the young couple in love by putting them on a raft out to sea. Perhaps it was his lack of enthusiasm about the book that made it seem such an odd story line.
I asked him if he was unimpressed with the entire selection for Battle of the Books and he said he did really like Artemis Fowl.
We just picked up Cuba 15 and he is looking forward to reading that.
Matt finishes Final Warning in 2 days but not impressed November 9, 2008
Posted by irisia in Matthew Educational, matt.Tags: battle of the books
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Matthew had really liked some of the books from James Patterson and so when we went to the library the other day to get some books for Battle of the Books, he picked up Final Warning. I thought it was on the list but this was just “recreational” reading. I wish so badly I read as voractiously as Matty. He’s amazing.
He didn’t give it a great review. He gave me the quick synopsis and it sounded like a LOT was going on in the story. He wasn’t impressed with it. But, if he read it in 2 days, it must not have been too bad.
