<p>I think NCSSM realizes that all the students have potential, but some have had more opportunity than others. In our district, it would be unusual to get beyond Alg2/Precalc, but my son met students from other districts who had already taken AP Calc and some who barely were offered Algebra2 in their home town. It is important to keep your college goals in mind, but not fret over who gets placed in what class as it is often a reflection of opportunity. Colleges will see that the person who took Alg 2 in 10th grade will not place into AP Calc right away. It is best not to compare your placement with another person and just focus on the placement that challenges you, not necessarily the highest possible classes if you have not had the prerequisite ones. This will be a change from taking the hardest possible classes at your home school. Also know that you are there for the whole experience and get involved.</p>
<p>I have submitted my appeal! Now, I just have to wait until May 4th to find out. <em>fingers crossed</em></p>
<p>Good luck!! I hope you get in! ^_____^</p>
<p>By the way, is anyone having trouble logging into the application site now? I wanted to check to see if anything had happened after I indicated that yes, I would like to attend NCSSM (I haven’t gotten any emails or notifications or anything), and now I can’t enter the site. (“You entered an incorrect username or password.”) :C</p>
<p>Hmm, perhaps they closed down the application part? Wait a few more days and you should get more information about Welcome day (on the 30th) if you haven’t already. I’m not sure if they have opened up Focus to you guys yet, but do try <a href=“https://focus.ncssm.edu/focus/[/url]”>https://focus.ncssm.edu/focus/</a> . If you’ve selected “Yes” and saved the option, don’t worry about it! (Our ITS might be having an some technical issues or something.)</p>
<p>Admissions just sent an email saying that finalists will not be able to access their application accounts anymore. Just like RobotUnicorn says, there is a new login page at Focus. You should get an email with your username…</p>
<p>OK - I just got an email with my Focus login info today. 
Thanks!</p>
<p>Beware of studying over the summer to get placed in a higher class. Many juniors arriving at NCSSM will have had: AP Chemistry, for instance, and if a student who hasn’t had it is placed in a high level chem class with those students because of a knowledge bump caused by self-study, despite it being noble, that student will not get any special consideration. The teacher will likely breeze over or skip topics she feels the majority of the class knows - EVEN if AP Chem was not a pre-requisite for the chem class in question. </p>
<p>Same for math, same for physics, same for computer science. If you do not feel strong in a particular subject or have previous coursework in it, and you’d like to participate in extra-curriculars and therefore won’t have time to self-study through the year, be conservative. In addition, if you don’t maintain a certain grade in some classes, you are kicked out. C grades are frowned upon (no one likes explaining why straight A kids are suddenly making C’s at NCSSM) so rather than quibble about it, students are dropped down to a lower level class. The very short trimesters and resulting limited grading opportunities make it difficult to recover from a bad grade. A few quizzes, maybe two tests and you’re done. So again, choose your class level carefully, even if it you feel it looks bad on your transcript. Try to think of life beyond the first trimester. If you have more than 1 B after first trimester, you won’t be allowed to “overload” (5 quality classes) during the second trimester, so swallow your pride, forget that your peers at your old high school are taking more classes than you, and learn how to make your NCSSM transcript as attractive as possible. If you’re coming from a competitive high school, it may be less impressive coursewise, so at least try to make all A’s to make up the difference. Do that by not stretching. Sounds counter-intuitive, I know: Come to NCSSM and do less, but it’s a strategy a lot of kids use to maintain their high GPA’s. </p>
<p>A 180: Incoming NCSSM juniors who might have had the chance to take 6-7 AP classes at their old high schools will be lucky to take 4-5 at NCSSM. Therefore, do YOUR VERY BEST to test out of repeating a sophomore year of foreign language. With only four core clases permitted in the first trimester, you really don’t want one of those four subjects to be a repeat of a language.</p>
<p>Just got my Appeal Nonfinalist decision. Ah well. Maybe NCSSM isn’t right for me, and after some thought on it, I feel this is true. I am quite comfortable at my home school, and will be taking some challenging courses next year. No leaving home or weekly work service for me! To all who are going, enjoy your stay! I’m quite positive you’ll love it. :)</p>
<p>I got in 
yay and all that.</p>
<p>I didnt go to the first welcome day (Science Olympiad States), so maybe they talked about this, but…</p>
<p>1) What is the Summer Service learning? Is it better to do it before Junior or Senior year?</p>
<p>2) Also, for Work Service I think it asks if you want to do Maintenance, Grounds, or Cafeteria. What is that? What is the difference between them?</p>
<p>Thanks :)</p>
<p>1) The Summer Service learning is where you have to do 60 hours of volunteering at ONE nonprofit organization and do a short presentation on it at the beginning of the year. I highly recommend doing it before Junior year because once you get here, you’ll discover many opportunities such as a summer program for junior year or a internship, so you want to work on the next summer.</p>
<p>2) You’re required to do 3 hours of work service every week. You will receive different assignments every trimester. Cafeteria is just what it sounds: serving food, washing dishes, and cleaning the area. Maintenance is where you could help paint and carry heavy stuff. Grounds is basically keeping the campus clean. You will only select ONE of these three. For your other two trimesters, you will be assigned to other departments such as Humanities, Online Program Department, Chemistry, Physics, Academic Office et cetera. These are chosen based on the experience and stuff that you put on the same form.</p>
<p>In regards to shanidar’s post, I completely agree with the “don’t be an overachiever” message. However, you should still try to challenge yourself by taking on more extracurriculars if you have “chill” classes, try a seminar or a sport. Be productive; NCSSM is not the place to sit in your room to game. Be social, too. Incoming juniors will all get use to the feeling that they can’t be the best at everything, but should rather find that specific area. This is a place to open your eyes and your mind.</p>
<p>Congrats on your Science Olympiad achievement. Be aware that at NCSSM, you have to try-out for the S.O. team, so if that is something important to you, be mindful of the dates and requirements. You don’t want to be so bogged down in class work that you don’t have time to submit your project proposal. This past year, the deadline came at a very inopportune time and people who had actually won medals during their freshman and sophomore years at their home high schools were unable to compete. They were unaware there were barriers to entry for NCSSM S.O. (Here’s another one of those times when you’ll look at people taking easy classes and wonder what you were doing pushing yourself) </p>
<p>Don’t worry too much about the work service. It’s very hit or miss. Some kids show up for fifteen minutes and leave. Maintenance is creepy - cross your fingers and hope not to get that one. Grounds is okay. Raking leaves is relaxing, but you’ll probably be thinking the whole time - “I’m one of the smartest juniors in the state and the best use of my time NCSSM can come up with is me raking leaves? Uh. Okay.” Don’t forget, you’ll need to also build in time to clean your dorm’s toilets and showers nightly–yes, even if you have two gigantic tests the next day. </p>
<p>NCSSM doesn’t have much faith in the incoming juniors ability to self-study–hilarious when you think of what you’ve gone through to get where you’ve gotten academically. You’ll be required to attend Super Study your first trimester–no computers allowed. Which means if you signed up for hard classes with web-assigns or other computer based assignments your first trimester, that’s 2 HOURS less you’ll have each night to do your real homework. </p>
<p>Absolutely do your summer service requirement now. Our tour leader said to wait and take it after junior year because there would be “more and better” opportunities provided by the school. Completely untrue. </p>
<p>Agree with RU that specializing is the way to go at NCSSM. Because students are only allowed to take 4-5 core classes–a.k.a. AP classes–you should probably forget having a broad education. For instance, the best math classes are all core. To take more than one of them means giving up a qualilty history, English or science class. By specializing, you’ll have your best chance of appealing to your target college. Naturally, 4 APs during your junior year from NCSSM are not as impressive as 7 from your old school, so you’ll need to carefully show why attending NCSSM was a better/tougher academic decision. It’s unfortunate that you have to stop learning in one area to excel in another, but that is the whole point of attending NCSSM - niche learning, and showing that you’ve taken advantage of that on your college app. may be your best chance to get in. </p>
<p>True about the social opportunities at the school. That is valued as highly or even more highly than the academics. Believe it or not, there are people who come to NCSSM strictly for fun. They’re the “chill” people RU was talking about. You’ve got to remember - their very excited about going to App. State. Find like-minded people when you get to NCSSM who will remind you that you’re competing for a spot at MIT against kids from Enloe and other top schools in the state - not necessarily against other NCSSM kids.</p>
<p>I am going to add a bit from the parent perspective. It is important to keep your goals in mind and perhaps the specialization is the best way to compete for a spot in a competitive university. However, you are 16 years old and it may not be the best decision to lock in your future so tightly. NCSSM has many classes that your home school can not offer. My son decided to focus on physics, and he did take almost all the advanced ones offered. However, after his junior year, he became interested in Japanese after starting Spanish. He added Japanese as a second language- yes, it took up a precious class spot, one that could have been filled with a higher level class- and thus a possible higher GPA, but he is passionate about Japanese. He is still a physics major with a minor in Japanese, is fluent, and studied there for a summer. No, he did not attend MIT (did not apply). Perhaps this would have excluded him. But if he had not taken it, he would have missed out on something that he is passionate about- and has made his life richer.
NCSSM can be an opportunity to discover new interests as well.</p>
<p>The better thing would be to allow students to explore new interests without limiting their old ones. </p>
<p>I lost at least 4 friends who went back to their old schools because they had access to more high quality classes. We all talked about it and no one can understand why a school like NCSSM, with so many science and math courses in its catalog, allows students to take so few of them. Most competitive high schools let their top students take 6 or 7 or even 8 AP courses or similar high quality courses. Why is 4 or 5 the max at a science and math school?</p>
<p>I don’t know. We live in a more rural area with limited opportunities. There is no way my son could have taken near the number of advanced classes that he took at NCSSM. He was as busy as he needed to be with the class load at NCSSM and the breadth of learning there. The AP classes there taught way beyond the content of the test. Perhaps students with other good opportunities need to consider the other aspects of NCSSM and the reasons they wish to go there. An excellent student will succeed in any case, but the experiences are different. I think every student needs to consider his or her goals and which situation will help them best achieve them.</p>
<p>I feel like I really need to emphasize this very frequently, but NCSSM is not all about academics. It’s about balance, independence, and passion.</p>
<p>Other schools may offer you 7 to 8 AP classes, but definitely not a research opportunity at UNC-CH or Duke, or even at a company in the Triangle Research Park. Others rarely provide the staff and resources to inspire students to innovate and take their innovation to California to win the Conrad competition and receive funding to make their innovation possible. Other schools do not give you the experience of living on a residential hall while making you do your own housekeeping. Here at NCSSM, we develop in so many ways. </p>
<p>Sure Academics is important, but so many people can have straight A’s and 5’s on APs and perfect whatever standardized testing scores. Colleges see that frequently; it’s not that impressive anymore. NCSSM lets you grow as a person, not just a student. Be active at school, try a new sport, join some interesting clubs, take a seminar, and make lots of friends. NCSSM does not mold everyone into ivy league material, but what you gain out of it is something most people gain after they go to college, you just get a head start. </p>
<p>Many of the courses here are very interesting, some are even more intense than AP courses. They are usually the courses with the course ID of 400 to 499. They count 6.0 on your GPA just like AP. Certain UNC colleges accept them as college courses. Many teachers here hate teaching AP courses because they try to stay away from students who just want to take an AP class just to add on to their transcript for colleges. AP classes also do not cover topics as in depth as many other ones. For example, instead of taking AP Biology and digesting the entire 1000 page AP Biology textbook, one could focus on certain topics like Anatomy and Physiology, Molecular and Cellular Biology, or Molecular Genetics and mess with your own DNA. Have you taken the time to read the course catalog? There’s so many other classes besides AP’s. </p>
<p>Standardized testing doesn’t measure your creativity and weakly attempts to measure your problem solving skills. If you prefer AP classes because you’re comfortable with the system, then I’d say you’re not challenging yourself enough. </p>
<p>Oh and btw, we’re a research heavy school. Teachers here are so happy to work with you as long as you propose something reasonable and interesting to them. If they can’t do it, they could hook you up with some awesome connections at nearby universities.</p>
<p>I think one of the tragedies of the college application process is the competition for the top schools. Read any post here, and it is about top grades, AP, and SAT scores. That is the reality. It can narrow a student’s education in a way as they may have to choose “AP” over something that may truly interest them like art, a non AP science/math class, or a second language. Some students are goal oriented since an early age and I believe MIT admission has to be planned for early on. MIT takes the very top students from NCSSM and elsewhere. But there are many paths at all schools and NCSSM as well. For many students, admission at a top school is the main goal and all activities are directed at that. For others, that is a goal but so is academic exploration. Several of my son’s classmates were accepted at MIT and many top schools. I know my son would not have traded a single interesting class or his NCSSM experience for another AP score.
Each person’s goals are different, and it is important to find the best fit for each student. I did not expect my child to know exactly what he wanted at age 16, but other parents do. I have seen students at NCSSM enter MIT and any other top university. They are extremely successful. I have also seen other talented students there- in arts, science, literature, politics. Everyone needs to be honest with themselves and examine their opportunities with their own goals and interests in mind.</p>
<p>And I feel like I need to clarify what balance, independence and passion mean at NCSSM.</p>
<p>First, it really depends on what a student is at NCSSM to achieve. There is as wide a range of students at NCSSM as there is at any high school in the country. There are nerds, gays, druggies, jocks, gleeks, slackers, and of course, some of the top performing kids in North Carolina. Balance for some of these kids is much easier to achieve. They take chill classes, enjoy the many social events, date, eat off campus frequently, have sleepovers, make disparaging powerpoints of minorities. Not much to balance, unfortunately at the price of a dumbed down transcript. It is not uncommon to hear people say, I came to NCSSM because I needed a break maybe from their home life, maybe because of social and academic pressures at school. Balance is easy for them.</p>
<p>For the kids who want to reach and test into the toughest classes they can, the first trimester especially is hard to balance. Assuming the schools computer system continues to malfunction, theyll not only try to complete homework using spotty computer service, theyll deal with the requirements of Super Study where computers are not allowed. Giving up 1.5 hours a night to study hall might be no problem for the students whove chosen the easy route, but for kids who are taking two classes with web assigns, its significant, especially when the assignments are due at 11:00 p.m. The difficulty is compounded by housekeeping at 10:30 p.m., after the socially active kids enjoy thirty minutes of Happy Half. Kids who are reaching have to stop working again to clean their dorms at 10:30 at night, even if they have early morning classes and are exhausted. Lets face it. This is not a balancing issue, this is a survival issue. You cant balance 5 hours of homework when the school strips you of 2.5 hours each night. You cant get 8 hours of sleep when youve got to make-up those hours somewhere. </p>
<p>Independence is a non-issue. I keep hearing, NCSSM will help prepare you for college living, but how many graduating seniors are not prepared by the age of 18 to live away from home? I know a lot of college kids and not one of them has washed out of college, despite not having attended a boarding school.</p>
<p>Passion at NCSSM You may have it when you arrive, youll be lucky to have it when you leave. Because there are so many rules, restrictions, limitations, scheduling difficulties, and other school requirements, youll have to give up many of the activities you participated in previously. I know so many people who were, say in Chess Club, but had to drop it because of the timing. Club activities are not like typical high schools at lunch or after school. NCSSM has evening classes and the club president will set up meetings at whatever time works best for him/her. </p>
<p>There are lots of high schools that make arrangements with universities for enrichment. I didnt come from a big high school, but I personally knew three upperclassmen who were doing research at our local college. There may have been more. At NCSSM, it’s helpful to have a background in research already to attract the attention of the teachers. You said it yourself: IF the teachers like your proposal. Oh, btw, how does a student whos never had access to research opportunities prepare an appealing proposal? </p>
<p>Does NCSSM take kids with no previous research background and develop them into competitors for Siemens or Intel or any of the other high profile competitions No. Lets not pretend that they do or that they are remotely interested in doing so. The research thing is just not a realistic option for probably 90% of the kids who come to NCSSM. </p>
<p>Have you taken the time to read NCSSMs policy on core classes? Ive read the course catalog and would LOVE to take the courses the school offers. But those high level classes are CORE and we must never, ever forget that core classes are limited. </p>
<p>It isnt a question of being comfortable or uncomfortable with the AP system its a question of having access to quality coursework in an amount that satisfies a student. AP is a designation that offers some guarantee of that quality. NCSSM has AP equivalent coursework, but if the students cant access them as they desire, whats the point? </p>
<p>Id say NCSSM is not allowing students to challenge themselves. Students who come to NCSSM and end up doing less and learning less thats what teachers should hate. It’s a bit chilling to hear you say that teachers hate teaching students who want to learn at an AP level and creepy that you think they know “the intent” of students who push for more.</p>
<p>And FYI, there’s no more free college tuition for students graduating from NCSSM. It might be nice for the school to consider the college tuition savings that AP classes represent.</p>
<p>You say: NCSSM lets you grow as a person, not just a student. Be active at school, try a new sport, join some interesting clubs, take a seminar, and make lots of friends.</p>
<p>Do people really need to leave their old schools to do this? My whole point is, if you cant take more quality classes, if you arent going to be guided into research opportunities, if your grades will suffer because of the lack of academic support, why come to NCSSM?</p>
<p>That is a good question. One of the functions of NCSSM is to provide opportunities for students in areas where there are none, such as my son who felt like NCSSM offered him the world. Was he a Siemens winner? No, and considering that his home school only let him progress to Alg II by grade 10 and he had no research experience, he was not likely to be. But he was definitely not a “slacker” or social butterfly, and pushed himself to his personal limit, which was better than being bored to tears in the hardest classes in his school back home. Some classes are a stretch for kids who have no prior exposure, but may be considered “easy” by those with better options, albeit there are kids who choose an easier road in any school. My question is, if one does have opportunities that one considers better than NCSSM, why take the place of a student who would give anything to be there, like my son? It is heartbreaking to see someone who does not want to be there, when some students feel it is the best thing for them, and there is not enough space for all of them.
It is good to see your comments, for no school is right for all students. But NCSSM is right for many great students who want to be there.</p>
<p>Yes, it is surprising the number of kids who are at NCSSM for non-academic reasons, but then if you are being ridiculed at your home school for being gay or somehow different, or if you have an intolerable home life, who can blame a kid for wanting to escape that? Probably the most important thing I have learned in living with people my own age is that there are a lot of kids who’ve been through a lot emotionally. I think NCSSM is a safe place for them. I don’t think that is supposed to be a part of NCSSM’s goal, but I can understand why the kids do it. I’d do it, too. </p>
<p>As far as kids giving up great high schools to come to NCSSM, you can blame NCSSM for that. I mean really, have you ever seen a school surround itself with more hype? Everyone is made to believe that whatever it is they are doing at their base school, they’ll do that and more at NCSSM. They dangle the research thing out like bait, knowing full well they aren’t interested in guiding students into research, they just want to lure the kids with the best chance of winning awards for the school. Most of the kids in research have parents who are scientists or who already had amazing base school teachers who’ve guided them. There are very, very few who come to NCSSM research with no previous research or experience.</p>
<p>The most fair thing would be for NCSSM to tell kids coming from top schools that there is a strong chance they won’t be better off academically, but they can’t do that because they need their high SAT scores to help buff up the school’s SAT average. And unfortunately, you don’t know any of this until you get there and see it happening around you like a very bad dream. If you’ve given up a magnet seat to attend NCSSM, you’re stuck. </p>
<p>NCSSM is a great place for kids who do not have advanced opportunities, for kids who are ready to give up broad learning and specialize, and for the handful of experienced kids who are ready to compete in top tier science competitions–that is what NCSSM should advertise, but the school needs more high SAT scores than that would provide, so it derails the other bright students to boost its bottom line. It purposefully chooses kids from competitive high schools and by-passes kids who really do need the spots. In the end, it’s about politics, not education.</p>
<p>Many students will say that the NCSSM academic experience is comparable to that of an undergraduate; I strongly disagree here. ALL of the college level courses are watered-down. They don’t focus on exhaustive topic coverage, but rather zoom in on “interesting topics.” For example, in the multivariable calc courses (when I was there, the traditional calculus III college courses was divided into two trimester courses: “vector functions and partial derivatives” and “multiple integrals and vector fields”; I had Maria Hernandez for both), quite a while was spent on theoretically discussing Frenet frames and the theory of Lagrange multipliers, there wasn’t enough drill emphasized, so students left the course without being able to carry out basic calculations, such as the using lagrange multipliers to solve constrained optimization problems.
Back when I was there, students who participated in “research” seemed to receive all of the awards and praise. I was unfortunate enough to take four trimester of Research in Chemistry (directed by Myra Halpin), and did not really benefit. You end up “working” in a lab at Duke, UNC, NC State, or NCCU and you’re pushed to enter “research competitions” such as Siemens-Westinghouse or Intel Science Talent Search; the problem is that working toward getting a paper ready in time to submit to those competitions is completely at odds with what’s usually necessary to help the lab of which you are part further their research; moreoever, many of the students successfully doing this “research” couldn’t even tell you the difference between a markovnikov and anti-markovnikov product (a very basic regiochemistry principle in Organic reactions). The perceived success of their research primarily depended upon the lab in which they were working. The students working in labs headed by a motivated professor and had a lot of grad students were always the successful ones.
There are a ****load of rules at NCSSM and a very rigorous disciplinary system that some innocent students may get trapped by and certain guilty students may get away with. I’ll leave it at that. </p>
<p>Feel free to ask me if you have any other questions.</p>