Schools
Student's Possible Dilemma: Gov's School or Olympiada?
She have to pass on the school for exceptional students if she qualifies for the U.S. team.
Not as well-known, nor even as well-publicized, as this summer’s Olympics in London, are the academic “Olympiads” which test the knowledge, endurance and mettle of an intellectually gifted group of students. Like would-be Olympians, that have been set for them, and are now ready to compete on a still higher level.
Jessica Xu, a junior at , will be one of a highly select group from across the U.S.A. who will “train” at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado this summer—not in athletics, but in chemistry.
On the basis of her scores on the Chemistry Olympiad which was administered in late March, Xu was selected to attend the prestigious summer training session, held from June 5th to 20th. She is one of only twenty National Finalists from across the United States to have been selected to attend the US Olympia Chemistry. From among these 20, only four (plus two alternates) will be selected to represent the United States at the International chemistry event, to be held this year in Washington, D.C. from July 15 th to 30th (70 countries, each with four representatives, will be present at the final, international, event).
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Xu says she has already received a reading list and texts in preparation for the training session in Colorado. Xu says she would be thrilled to be part of the international event, should she be selected, but if not selected, she'ill attend the Governor’s School of the Sciences from July 15th to Aug. 4th, held at Drew University (also a great honor to be selected for).
Xu, who has been studying chemistry for two years, is especially grateful to her Hills chemistry teachers, Michael Gangluff, from whom she “learned most of her lab skills,” and Dr. Georgia Fisanick.
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The Olympiad training camp will be most useful to Xu, she says, when she takes the demanding Research & Design course next year.
Science Department Supervisor Darrin Wolsko is also impressed with Xu’s scholarship. Her performance in the Biology Olympiad as both a freshman and a sophomore was also outstanding— she reached semifinalist standing. The junior is not only proficient in the sciences, but is also outstanding in English—she won a Gold Key in the National Scholastic Writing Competition in the regional chapter and went on to win a Silver Medal at the National level.
