Tag: graduation

  • Class of 2024 Seniors Accepted to Over 49 US Colleges

    Class of 2024 Seniors Accepted to Over 49 US Colleges

    By Teresa Fang / May 21, 2024

    Congratulations, Class of ’24! (NCSSM)

    The Class of 2024 seniors were accepted to over 49 colleges in the United States to the Class of 2028 in the first admissions cycle since the fall of affirmative action prohibited colleges from considering race during the process.

    According to Dean of Counseling Lori Newnam, NCSSM Counseling Services worked with seniors from May 1-6 to complete their final transcript requests. After May 1, seniors self-reported their decisions to the department, which has released data on the colleges the class of 2024 committed to for The Stentorian. As of May 14, 2024, college commitment data was available for 289 out of the total 317 graduating seniors, including early decision, early action, and regular decision commitments:

    collegecitystatefinal choice
    Barnard CollegeNew YorkNY1
    Bates CollegeLewistonME1
    Boston CollegeChestnut HillMA1
    Boston UniversityBostonMA1
    Brown UniversityProvidenceRI1
    California Institute of TechnologyPasadenaCA1
    Carnegie Mellon UniversityPittsburghPA1
    Columbia University in the City of New YorkNew YorkNY2
    Cornell UniversityIthacaNY2
    Davidson CollegeDavidsonNC2
    Drexel UniversityPhiladelphiaPA1
    Duke UniversityDurhamNC17
    Elizabethtown CollegeElizabethtownPA1
    Florida Atlantic UniversityBoca RatonFL1
    Georgetown UniversityWashingtonDC1
    Georgia Institute of Technology-Main CampusAtlantaGA6
    Harvard UniversityCambridgeMA3
    Howard UniversityWashingtonDC1
    Johns Hopkins UniversityBaltimoreMD1
    Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyCambridgeMA5
    Middlebury CollegeMiddleburyVT1
    New York UniversityNew YorkNY1
    North Carolina State University at RaleighRaleighNC39
    Northwestern UniversityEvanstonIL1
    Princeton UniversityPrincetonNJ1
    Rice UniversityHoustonTX1
    Saint Joseph’s UniversityPhiladelphiaPA1
    St Olaf CollegeNorthfieldMN1
    Stanford UniversityStanfordCA3
    Swarthmore CollegeSwarthmorePA1
    Tufts UniversityMedfordMA1
    University of California-BerkeleyBerkeleyCA1
    University of ChicagoChicagoIL1
    University of DelawareNewarkDE1
    University of FloridaGainesvilleFL1
    University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignChampaignIL1
    University of Michigan-Ann ArborAnn ArborMI1
    University of North Carolina at Chapel HillChapel HillNC163
    University of North Carolina at CharlotteCharlotteNC3
    University of North Carolina WilmingtonWilmingtonNC1
    University of PennsylvaniaPhiladelphiaPA5
    University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh CampusPittsburghPA1
    University of Southern CaliforniaLos AngelesCA1
    University of ToledoToledoOH1
    Vanderbilt UniversityNashvilleTN1
    Wake Forest UniversityWinston-SalemNC1
    Washington and Lee UniversityLexingtonVA1
    Western Carolina UniversityCullowheeNC1
    Yale UniversityNew HavenCT3
    Data acquired by The Stentorian from Counseling Services. (The Stentorian)

    Counseling Services is still in the midst of processing acceptance data, and according to Program Assistant Pam Oxendine, the full data sheet will be released in June.

    78.5% of graduating seniors staying in-state

    Compared to last year, more seniors are staying in-state than going out-of-state, making up 78.8% of the graduating class. The two states with the greatest number of graduating seniors are Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, at 3.81% (11 students) each out of the total reporting seniors.

    This year, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) received a total of 163 committed NCSSM students, making up 56.4% of the total reporting seniors. In 2023, there were 169 commits. This marks the first decrease in committed UNC-CH students since 2021, the first year of in-person schooling after the pandemic. As the number of total applications to UNC-CH has been increasing by a steady 5.75% every year, it would not be a surprise to see more applications to UNC-CH than ever before.

    Ivy league, MIT, and Stanford commits

    Upending decades of legal precedents, the Supreme Court ruled in June 2023 that race-conscious college admissions programs at Harvard University and UNC-CH are unconstitutional, causing higher-education institutions to shift to race-neutral policies. NCSSM students going to Ivy League, MIT, and Stanford made up 7.61% of all graduating seniors. 

    College# Admits in 2024Av. # Admits since 2020avg. # accepted since 2020avg. % increase in applications since 2020
    Harvard32.754.755.12%
    UPenn52.5615.1%
    Princeton113.513.4%
    Columbia25918.9%
    Cornell241012.2%
    Brown11.53.2521.8%
    Dartmouth00.5221.9%
    MIT55.56.259.84%
    Stanford31.2538.71%
    Data acquired by The Stentorian from Counseling Services and Naviance. (The Stentorian).

    In the wake of the fall of affirmative action and the first cycle of some applicants admitted to the first test-required policies since 2020, the statistics for NCSSM graduating classes is not unusually different. Counseling Services did not release the statistics for race and ethnicity data (nor gender and socioeconomic details) for the graduating class to each college.

  • NCSSM-Durham Class of 2024 Graduates at the 43rd Commencement

    NCSSM-Durham Class of 2024 Graduates at the 43rd Commencement

    By Teresa Fang / May 25, 2024

    On May 25, 2024, seniors of the Class of 2024 graduated at the North Carolina School of Science and Math in Durham after receiving their diplomas on what Chancellor Roberts described as a “beautiful day.”

    Other speakers included Vice Chancellor for Student Life and Chief Campus Officer Terry Lynch, Gene Davis of the UNC Board of Governors, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Programs Katie O’Connor, student speaker Lucia Paulsen ’24, Student Body President Steaven Ramírez Serrano ’24, Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees and President of the Sloan Foundation Adam Falk ’83, and Chair of the Board of Trustees Stephanie M. Bass ’91.

    As Counseling Services released to The Stentorian two weeks ago, out of the 289 seniors who reported their final college decisions out of the total 317 graduating seniors, the Class of 2024 represented 49 colleges across the United States. More information and statistics on the Class of 2024’s college decisions can be viewed on stentorianncssm.wordpress.com.

    In this broadcast, The Stentorian reporter Teresa Fang interviews Lilianna Heffner ’25, Anna Tricomi ’25, Dr. Heather Mallory, Lucia Paulsen ’24, Riziki Chabeda ’24, May Ming ’24, Cole Thomas ’24 (and his grandmas), Eva Lou ’24, John Jahn ’24, Asa Zengerle ’25, Israel James ’25, Taylor Ellis ’25, and Ms. Maria Mileti.

  • Dean of Humanities Elizabeth Moose retires after 31 years at NCSSM

    Dean of Humanities Elizabeth Moose retires after 31 years at NCSSM

    By Elizabeth Moose / May 20,2024

    Retiring Dean of Humanities, Elizabeth Moose, on the Island of Kastellorizo. (Elizabeth Moose)

    Dean of Humanities Elizabeth Moose will retire at the end of this academic year after thirty-one years of service to NCSSM. We asked her to reflect on her long career and what message she would like to share with the NCSSM Classes of 2024 and 2025.

    Teaching and working here at NCSSM for the past thirty-one years has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. I am especially grateful to Dr. Ginger Wilson, Founding Faculty Member and NCSSM’s first Dean of Humanities, for hiring me.

    NCSSM has given me the opportunity to put my mind, imagination, energy, and heart into the service of something greater than myself. I cannot imagine any work that could have been more engaging and meaningful to me. I have so many wonderful memories of class discussions and students’ presentations and performances in WRRD, WECS, Writing and American Literature, American Studies, Creative Writing, and Classical Myth. Beall 1 and those other basement classrooms will always be sacred spaces to me. Although our time together was passing and will never come again, our connection and communion over texts and ideas will endure as long as we can think and feel. 

    I am grateful to all the students who have shared their NCSSM journeys with me, and I am grateful to all my colleagues who, through the years, have shared the challenges and joys of inspiring and supporting our students and school.

    As I leave NCSSM, I’d like to share with you a poem that has long been meaningful to me. I hope that it will speak to you as it has to me.

    With love,

    Elizabeth Moose

    Ithaka
    By C. P. Cavafy
    Translated by Edmund Keeley

    As you set out for Ithaka
    hope your road is a long one,
    full of adventure, full of discovery.
    Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
    angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
    you’ll never find things like that on your way
    as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
    as long as a rare excitement
    stirs your spirit and your body.
    Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
    wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
    unless you bring them along inside your soul,
    unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

    Hope your road is a long one.
    May there be many summer mornings when,
    with what pleasure, what joy,
    you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
    may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
    to buy fine things,
    mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
    sensual perfume of every kind—
    as many sensual perfumes as you can;
    and may you visit many Egyptian cities
    to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

    Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
    Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
    But don’t hurry the journey at all.
    Better if it lasts for years,
    so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
    wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
    not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

    Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
    Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
    She has nothing left to give you now.

    And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
    Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
    you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

    C. P. Cavafy, “Ithaka” from C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Translation Copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Reproduced with permission of Princeton University Press.

    The Island of Ithaka in Greece. (Elizabeth Moose)

  • Perspective: Convocation with Two Campuses and One School

    Perspective: Convocation with Two Campuses and One School

    By Sofía Alfaro / September 15, 2023
    Students lit up the out-of-power gym with their phone flashlights during convocation on August 15, 2023. (Teresa Fang/Stentorian)

    The students of NCSSM were crowded into the gym bleachers on August 15, 2023, for convocation. As it came closer to 4:00 p.m., the instructors began to sit down on the floor of the gym. Many students thought it was meaningless for them to be in the gym since they couldn’t see the speakers, and it would have been the same experience if the convocation had been over Zoom like last year since the speaker wasn’t even in-person. 

    At 4:20 p.m., the lights began to flicker and soon after, the power went out. The students cheered as they would no longer be forced to listen to a speaker whom some of them couldn’t even see. As the students realized they were stuck in the darkness, they began singing songs while waving their flashlights – as many people do during concerts. As time went on students began to get more restless as they were stuck in a hot gym with more than 600 other people. 

    After the storm passed, the students were released by bleacher sections into the residential buildings. Most students came back to the PEC to get dinner. But by the time students were getting back to their regular routines, the day had gotten darker. Since only Bryan Lobby had working lights and outlets due to the backup generators, the lobby was filled with at least a hundred students. As it got closer to check, students who had friends who lived nearby went to their houses. 

    Everyone did what they could to cool themselves off. At one point in the night, frozen cheesecake bites were put out for students to grab them. In addition to it being free food, it was also a nice cold snack. Though the power outage was inevitable, it would have been nice for Durham’s convocation to have been postponed due to the weather. 

    The thunderstorm outside the Bryan lobby main entrance on August 15, 2023. (Sofía Alfaro/Stentorian)

    August 15 and 16 were very chaotic days, but in those moments we were able to reflect. The PEC is a semi-permanent solution since the complete renovation of the auditorium will span over a few years. A solution that I would like to propose is two different convocations. Having two convocations would have made it easier to postpone it.

    The convocation experience should be completely in-person for both campuses as is graduation.  When I attended the convocation, I was sad to see that I couldn’t see the speaker and I wished that I could have. Neither Durham’s nor Morganton’s Fine Arts program was able to perform which I believe would have made the experience much better. Each campus’ orchestra and band are extremely talented and I would have loved to see them perform.

    Junior Valentina Kimes talked about her experience of the power outage. Though she was very excited for her first day of school she was still stressed and the power outage added to the stress. Even though the power outage created a very hot environment, Kimes was still able to have fun and believed that it was a good way to connect with her classmates. Most of this bonding happened in Bryan Lobby. Due to classes being canceled, many students were in Bryan Lobby so they could charge their devices. Not only were they able to charge their devices but they were also able to spend time with their peers and take a break from the intense NCSSM school day. 

    The power outage was a bonding experience but many juniors and seniors alike were not able to experience it to its full extent. Convocation is the day when all the students and faculty come together to appreciate NCSSM; Durham and Morganton are completely separate campuses that have their own cultures. To appreciate NCSSM for what it is would be to have a convocation where the speaker and students can come together and appreciate the uniqueness of each campus.