I'm Daniel Ziegler, 18 years old and finishing my third, and final, year at the Academy.
Undoubtedly, you've heard about the fantastic academic opportunities available at this school, and you can't wait to have the rigorous curriculum and excellent teachers
allow you to learn to your fullest potential. But of course, there are other considerations involved. You might wonder, as I once did, how well you'll really be able to leave your current classes, friends, and activities behind and recreate them as well as you can in a completely new environment. But, while it will certainly take effort during the initial transition period, I think that there are enough opportunities here that it will work out for almost everyone.
I arrived after several years homeschooling and attending a charter school, both of which offered me the flexibility I needed to focus on my programming work. I train for and compete in programming competitions as well as working as a software developer for my father's start-up, and I'm sure you can imagine how much time that requires. So for me, my biggest worry was how well I would be able to continue with those activities on top of a rigorous course load. And while it has not been easy - it's always hard to prioritize important, long-term projects over less important but urgent homework deadlines - I was actually able to pull it off better than I expected. I made it into an international programming competition, and my teachers even let me skip school for two weeks to attend.
What's more, my social life and hobbies have improved as well. It's awesome to be around people that are all as smart as (or more so) than you. All of a sudden, you're not defined by being the "smart kid" anymore. Intelligence is taken for granted; instead, people's other talents and tastes come out. When I got here, I found some other people who loved music and formed a band, Chords on the Ceiling. I even got to record the drum tracks for an album.
Now, as I finish up my last few months here, I’m looking forward to the next awesome school I’ll attend, MIT. I know I’ll always be grateful to the Academy for helping to get me there and for preparing me so well.
~ Daniel Ziegler, Third Year Davidson Academy Student
Students are
appropriately challenged while learning
at a pace and depth consistent with the
knowledge, skills and motivation.
Students develop Personalized Learning Plans (PLPs) to guide them through a rigorous core
curriculum and choose electives.
Students can earn college credits while accessing resources and mentorship
opportunities at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Students build friendships and pursue extracurricular
activities with same-age intellectual peers.
Students regularly meet one-on-one with an academic advisor, who has
experience working with profoundly gifted youth.
2013-2014 Application Available If you think The Davidson Academy of Nevada may be the right fit for you, consider applying for the 2013-2014 school year! Visit the
How to Apply page to download the application PDF files. The Academy is specifically designed to meet the needs of profoundly gifted middle and high school students who score in the 99.9th percentile on IQ or college entrance tests, such as the SAT or ACT. Please review the recently updated
Qualification Criteria page of our website as these scores are mandatory for student eligibility. On the
Application Review Process
page, you will find detailed information about the on-site assessment.
Upcoming Tour for Prospective Students
The final tour of the Davidson Academy during the current school year will take place 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday, March 8,
2013.
Each Academy tour for prospective students and their parents allows visitors to meet current Academy students, parents, faculty and staff, and ask specific questions about the school.
For details, including directions to The Davidson Academy and RSVP information, please visit the
Tours page. If you would like more information, please contact us at
outreach@davidsonacademy.unr.edu.
This video clip, produced by KTVN in Reno, was
recently developed by and features members of the Davidson Academy of Nevada's Pedestrian Safety Team.
The motto of the Pedestrian Safety Project, headed by the Academy
Robots, Rockets, & Radio (RRR) club, is “Look Up, Unplug, Stay Safe.”
The
applications deadline of March 1 for
the 2013 THINK Summer Institute
is fast approaching! THINK is a three-week residential summer program on the campus of
the University of Nevada, Reno where students can earn up to six college credits by completing two University
courses. THINKers have the opportunity to
familiarize themselves with the University campus where
the Academy is located. THINK will run from July 13
through Aug. 3. Tuition is $3,250 and covers course
credits, books and materials, room and board and the
cost of planned activities. Need-based scholarships are
available. To qualify, students must be 13 to 16 years
old during THINK and must meet or exceed composite SAT
score of 1130 (excludes writing portion) or ACT score of
26. Homeschooled students are eligible.
Apply today!
DECA The
Davidson Academy's DECA team recently traveled to Las Vegas to
compete in the Nevada State Career Development Conference and did
extremely well, with each student receiving an award in their
respective category. It was a fantastic job all around by the
following participants:
Nathalie Chen, Raghavi Anand, and Joel Hines, 1st place, Buying and Merchandising Operations Research Event
Ikya Kandula, 1st place, Hotel and Lodging Management Series
Logan Thomason and Becki Thompson, 2nd place, Hospitality Services Team Decision Making Event
Adelaide Oh and Amanda Bak, 4th place, Marketing Communications Team Decision Making Event
Raghavi Anand, 1st place, Principles of Business Management and Administration
Hadley Weiss and Holly Choma, 1st and 2nd place (respectively), Principles of Finance
Rebecca Bennett, 1st place, Principles of Hospitality and Tourism
Nathalie Chen and Divya Tenneti, 3rd and 7th place (respectively), Principles of Marketing
Erin Miller and Jessica Fuchs, 8th place, Travel and Tourism Marketing Team Decision Making Event
Students placing in the top three slots qualify for Internationals competition in Anaheim, CA, in April. DECA is an international student marketing association which: 1) encourages students in marketing-related classes to pursue careers in marketing, management, and entrepreneurship and 2) promotes understanding and appreciation of the free enterprise system as well as the responsibilities of citizenship. Congratulations to all participants for a successful conference!
National Merit Scholarship Finalists Announced
Academy students Elliot Glazer, Dixee Kimball, Aishwarya Krishnamoorthy,
Ian McKeachie,
Elli Tian,
Angela Xu,
Richard Zheng and
Daniel Ziegler are among the 15,000 finalists throughout the country being
considered for this year's
National Merit Scholarships.
The selection of 8,300 Merit Scholarship winners is now
in progress and award announcements will begin in March.
Spelling Bee Academy students Rinik Kumar and Yatin Chandar recently participated in the the District Spelling Bee,
achieving
very successful results. Rinik (pictured with his trophy, right) was named the 1st place champion for
seventh grade and will represent the Academy at the state
competition and Yatin received Honorable Mention for 6th grade. B-r-a-v-o!
Presidential Scholars Program Candidates
The White House Commission on Presidential Scholars and the United States Department of Education
recently informed the following Academy students that they are among 560 seniors
nationwide to be considered
Presidential Scholars Program candidates:
Elliot Glazer, Ikya Kandula,
Dixee Kimball, Aishwarya Krishnamoorthy,
Elli Tian,
Angela Xu,
Richard Zheng and
Daniel Ziegler.
These students will compete to be one of up to 141 Presidential Scholars from across the country who get invited to Washington, D.C., for the National Recognition Weekend in June. The Academy has had one past Presidential Scholar
and would be honored to build a tradition of
Presidential Scholars.
Siemens Foundation Awards for Advanced Placement
Academy students Rebecca Bauer and Daniel Ziegler were each recognized as
2012 Siemens Award winners for Nevada and will both receive a $2,000
scholarship from the Siemens Foundation, based on achieving
excellent Advanced Placement scores. Each state can only have one female and one male recipient.
View the press release (PDF).
What
is your favorite part about working with Academy
students? Oh, my. This is like asking why you like your own children. You just like them. Let’s see if I can psychoanalyze myself. I suppose one of the central nuggets is their curiosity. We’re kindred spirits in that way. I am fascinated by anything and everything, and I’m used to excitedly talking about the guy who invented the modern day chair, say, and just marveling over the profound in the mundane as people around me snooze.
Yet these kids sometimes outpace even me in curiosity!
They are often hitting the ground running trying to find the answers that their curiosity opens, even when no answers are to be found. And it doesn’t stop there: then they hypothesize and theorize! That is probably followed by hypothesizing and theorizing about hypotheses and theories, but for the sake of everyone’s sanity, I’ll leave it there.
Are there any new projects you are currently working on in the classroom? I feel like my very life is a “new project” I’m working on! Of course, but perhaps not quite in the spirit this question is asked. I am always trying new units and completely revising existing units to fit my current students. Sometimes this is a raging success, and sometimes it’s an impressive failure. You can’t be afraid as a teacher to fail, just as students need to be encouraged to take chances with the knowledge that failure is sometimes the result. Supposedly success in life is partly predicated upon how one reacts to disappointment, a regular piece of life. Brilliant things, even, can come from apparent crashes.
Schools, of course, must foster this in students, and what better way than for teachers to unabashedly enact this? Let me qualify that these “failures” are not as catastrophic as the word suggests. They just send me home ruminating on how to adjust things, if possible, or if it’s time to call something dead-in-the-water. It almost never is the latter one, but I’m not afraid for it to be. I encourage mental fearlessness in my students, and I’m an adamant follower of “practice what you speak.” So there are many projects. There will always be projects.
Academy Students Win Big
at Northern Nevada Chapter MathCounts Competition
The Davidson Academy MATHCOUNTS team was recently featured in the CarsonNow article,
Students Win Northern Nevada Chapter MathCounts Competition,
following a fantastic performance at the Northern Nevada
Chapter Competition. The students ran away
with six of the top seven places in the Individual
Competition and achieved 1st place in the Team
Competition. Top individual winner Dylan Hildebrand, Ian Oh,
Sarah MacHarg
and Rinik Kumar were the students who participated in the
Team Competition. Eight out of the ten competitors qualified
to go on to the state competition! The results of the Academy students in the
Individual Competition are as follows.
Photo courtesy of CarsonNow.
1st - Dylan Hildebrand
2nd - Ian Oh
4th - Sarah MacHarg
5th - Galen Kimball
6th - Rinik Kumar
7th - Matt Oakley
“I can confidently say that my time
at the Academy has been the most rewarding and productive in my life, and certainly in my education. While the Academy offers classes that teach advanced material, the most valuable thing it’s taught me is not any piece of information but how to learn, and love to learn.”
Angela Xu, Sixth Year Davidson Academy Student (pictured, left)
If you have been forwarded this Davidson Academy
Prospective Student eNewsletter, and wish to receive future
newsletters, sign-up here.
Dear Prospective Student,
What
Sets The Davidson Academy Apart?
Upcoming Tour for Prospective Students
The
applications deadline of March 1 for
the 2013 
DECA
Academy students Rebecca Bauer and Daniel Ziegler were each recognized as
2012 Siemens Award winners for Nevada and will both receive a $2,000
scholarship from the Siemens Foundation, based on achieving
excellent Advanced Placement scores. Each state can only have one female and one male recipient.
What
is your favorite part about working with Academy
students?
“I can confidently say that my time
at the Academy has been the most rewarding and productive in my life, and certainly in my education. While the Academy offers classes that teach advanced material, the most valuable thing it’s taught me is not any piece of information but how to learn, and love to learn.”
