Contents

• College Board Prepares To Open Door to AP Chinese
• Inglemoor High School International Baccalaureate Information Night
• University of Washington World Languages Day
• University of Washington Math Day for High School Students
• University of Washington Mini Medical School for the General Public
• Sno-Isle Skills Center Open House
• University of Washington Summer Programs for Middle School Students
• Guest Author, former Henry M. Jackson High School Student, Class of 1998

Excerpt from an article by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo in Education Week on 12/10/2003

"The College Board will offer a new Advanced Placement course and exam in Chinese language and culture beginning in the 2006-07 school year, the New York City-based organization announced last week. Introduction of the subject is part of a plan to double the number of foreign language offerings in the rigorous high school program, with the goal of promoting the study of other languages and cultures as essential for students' success in an increasingly global society."

http://www.edweek.org/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=15China.h23

"IB" is our middle name. The International Baccalaureate Diploma Program is often rated even higher than the College Board's Advanced Placement (AP) program. Only 2 Washington high schools send more students to the University of Washington than Inglemoor: Newport and Roosevelt. We have always been impressed with Inglemoor. And this year, Inglemoor is rated in the top 6 public schools in the Seattle Times School Guide for reputation as rated by local college admissions officers. On Wednesday, February 4^th, 2004, from 7 to 8:30 PM, Inglemoor High School will hold its annual International Baccalaureate Information Night. This is a chance to learn if an IB school is right for your son or daughter.

http://ihsweb.nsd.org/

Most of the large school districts in our area, except for Everett, have an International Baccalaureate Diploma opportunity for students. We will continue working to change this situation. At this time, however, families must transfer to one of the local IB schools: Inglemoor, Edmonds-Woodway, Interlake, Ingraham, and soon, Mariner.

For Washington High School Students, Friday February 27, 2004

"Today's high school juniors and seniors have the opportunity and the challenge of living in a world whose boundaries are becoming smaller and smaller. Our country is engaged politically, economically and even militarily with many nations today. We do not know today where the future will take us in terms of our international engagements. It is more and more essential, as well as mind-opening, to learn other languages and to become familiar with the cultures of our world neighbors. Attend every session you can on World Languages day and see your horizons expand."

http://www.outreach.washington.edu/k12/wld/default.asp

Some of the many sessions offered this year:

• Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew: The Writing System
• Hispanic Dance
• Culture and Languages of India
• Russian Superstitions
• I Must Be in Poland Since Strangers Are Kissing My Hand
• Sound of the Trade Winds: Caribbean Folk Music
• Italian Mini Lesson
• Swahili Language Lesson
• Turkey, Turkmenistan, Iran – A View of Three Different Islamic Countries
• What You Didn't Know About Kung Fu
• Indonesian: Language of the Land of Seventeen Thousand Islands
• Meet the International Business Students
• Cultural Competence: You need it to survive in the real world

On Monday, March 22^nd, 2004, the University of Washington will hold its annual Math Day event for high school students. Space is limited. So sign up early through your school.

http://www.outreach.washington.edu/k12/mathday.asp

Cutting-edge topics in the mathematical sciences are presented by top faculty during this one-day event. Participants choose among six morning and three afternoon sessions covering topics ranging from predicting the weather to hyperbolic geometry. Panel discussions, one on careers in mathematics and the other on the experiences of undergraduate math students, round out the day’s activities.

Participants take field trips to various campus laboratories and facilities where mathematics is put to use every day, including the virtual reality (HIT) lab, planetarium, Puget Sound simulator, and computer labs.

The UW Medicine Mini-Medical School ("Mini-Med") is a six-part series of exciting lectures and demonstrations, open to the general public and designed to teach about medical education, research and clinical care at the University of Washington.

Hosting the series are Dr. Carlos Pellegrini, Henry N. Harkins professor and chair of the Department of Surgery, and Dr. Ed Walker, medical director of the UW Medical Center and associate dean in the UW School of Medicine.

The programs are scheduled every Wednesday evening between February 11 and March 17, 2004 at 7 p.m. in Hogness Auditorium, Warren G. Magnuson Health Sciences Center, 1959 N.E. Pacific Street in Seattle.

http://courses.washington.edu/minimed/

We recommend this series for high school students interested in medicine.

Parents, students, and community, you are invited to attend an Open House at Sno-Isle TECH, Thursday, February 5, 2004 from 6 to 8 PM. See what Sno-Isle TECH has to offer high school juniors and seniors. Take a self-guided tour of the Sno-Isle Campus and speak with the instructors.

http://snoisle.mukilteo.wednet.edu/

The AP/IB Boosters and Heatherwood Middle School PTA are proud to cosponsor an information evening on the University of Washington's Summer Programs for Middle School Students on Tuesday, February 10, 2004. Three programs will be presented: Middle School Short Courses (Open enrollment), Summer Challenge and Summer Stretch (Selective). The UW Middle School Short Courses are one week all day courses open to all students entering 6th - 8th grade. The 2004 summer courses will be announced in February. The 2003 summer courses included: In the Courthouse, Kids Invent Robotics, Exploring Art through Architecture, and Young Writers Workshop. The UW Summer Challenge is a three-week summer commuter program offered by the Halbert & Nancy Robinson Center for Young Scholars for qualifying students currently in the 5th or 6th grade. If you are currently in 7th, 8th, or 9th grade (qualified students currently in 10th grade may be admitted to Precalculus or Chemistry) Summer Stretch may be an option for you. It is a five-week commuter program of high school classes. The program offers an opportunity for vigorous academic challenge in the company of other capable students.

http://www.apibboosters.org/events/UWMSSummerPrograms.html

Jackson is supposed to be the school that prepares you for college, what I realized when I got there was how very wrong that was. I graduated from Jackson in 1998 with a 3.9 GPA so I felt I was pretty well prepared for the University of Washington. I started off my freshman year with 15 college credits, a whole quarter ahead of the other freshmen; I though that meant I might have an advantage over other students.

Nothing in high school prepared me for my first lecture class. I was used to teachers giving me study guides, telling me exactly what I needed to know, and if enough students complained about the amount of work it was usually changed. In college, no professor told me what to study or what to think. Almost all of my tests at UW were essay tests; I rarely had essay tests in high school. I had no book in which to look up answers. I felt totally lost and unprepared, but I thought maybe it was just this one class, the rest have to be like my high school classes. But they weren't. In college no one cares if you show up to class or not and there is no one to check up on you to make sure you have done the reading. If you don't have that intrinsic need to learn or feel the value of higher education it's so easy to get lost. If, by a student's junior year of high school, they are still having their parents tell them to do their homework or that they need to study more, they aren't going to do well in college. Students should be in control over their own education by the time they reach that point. They need to be aware of the importance of taking classes to prepare themselves for their future.

After my first year at the University of Washington I transferred to Western Washington University where it was a much different experience. The classes were smaller and even the larger lectures were broken down into smaller study groups. The professors there were more willing to take a look at our papers and available to answer questions about tests. But the biggest difference I noticed was the tests themselves, in my 3 years at Western I only had 1 essay exam, the tests at Western were multiple-choice, for the most part. At Western, students seemed more focused on studying and being at school, while at the UW (at least in my opinion) classes were just something to do. You are in the center of a big city where there is so much else to do. On a huge campus that's a little overwhelming. It seemed that the transition at Western was much softer; professors didn't assume you learned things that they thought were necessary, they were willing to quickly go over the basics, while at the UW a lot was assumed to be already known.

I would have felt so incompetent going from excelling in school, to not being able to write a simple paper, if I did not have a little background on what professors were looking for. As a senior, at Jackson I took UW English, where we learned how to write an essay. Now these were nothing like the 20 page papers I had to write for my psychology seminars, but they were a lot more in depth than any essay other high school classes required. At Jackson, you are given a diagram of what should be in a paragraph and it is pretty easy to fill it with fluff, in college everything you write needs to be backed up with a reason and researched. If students are at all interested in going to college I highly recommend taking a rigorous class, such as AP classes, so that they can prepare themselves for what is in store for them. In most of the other classes I felt teachers were trying to get you to learn a particular fact or to a certain point then their work was done. It wasn't until years later that I understood what they were doing. UW English was the only class, I felt, actually prepared you for college… rather than the WASL.

Summary of Academic Events

http://www.apibboosters.org/events/Events.html

Thank you,

Executive Board

http://www.apibboosters.org/BoardBios.html

AP/IB Boosters
Advanced Placement Opportunities for All Students
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