Friday, March 2, 2012
the
The Smoke Signal
Smoke Signal
Mission San Jose High School Est. 1964 Vol. 47, No. 6 | March 2, 2012 www.thesmokesignal.org
41717 Palm Ave. Fremont, CA 94539 (510) 657-3600 Editors-in-Chief Andrew Han, Diya Roy News Allan Ko, Mekala Neelakantan Opinion Anthony Chen, Courtney Tam Feature Sida Lu, Edward Nguyen Centerspread Frank Chen, Alice Zalan A&E Alekya Rajanala,
Maya Ramachandran
Sports Omar El-Sadany, Sanjna Shukla Graphics Angie Wang, Kevin Zhai Web Aishwarya Thakur, Jonathon Teng Tech Sai Chilakapati, Vipin Dulam Business Rachel Choi Circulation Connor Williams Ads Ditha Balaji, Jade Shi Events Nihar Parikh, Sherry Xiao Writers & Photographers Vishal Bajpai, Leland Bernstein, Jason Chen, Matt Farberov, Brandon Fuhs, Jaynelle Gao, Kevin He, Catherine Ho, Kenny Jacoby, Vivian Jair, Anjali Kanthilal, Avery Kruger, Vishak Menon, Jin Peng, Kyle Qian, Tanya Raja, Anusha Rijhsinghani, Hannah Shih, Sonali Toppur, Grace Wu, Kerrie Wu, Supriya Yelimeli, Anna Zeng, Lindy Zeng
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of Courts! Second Semester Senior (Citizens) By Courtney Tam Opinion Editor She sits there dutifully, in the same spot on the black leather sofa every day, checking her message inbox. A senior citizen, her phone model superseding her teenage grandchildren’s 10 times over in sleekness, my grandmother routinely explores all the different applications on her phone. Camera, video recorder, wallpaper archive, and much to my dismay, volume settings that result in 3am telemarketer calls amplified to epic proportions. You would think that as a senior citizen, she would slow down and take life easy: possibly starting the day off with a relaxing cup of tea and biscuits or catching a showing of a classic film or the latest episode of a drama, but she is just the polar opposite. The antithesis of laziness, she challenges her mind with the complexity of technology daily: her ever-changing cell phone models, thin laptop, and webcam, taking to care in adjusting it just so that it syncs to her Skype account. Whether it is totaling two miles on the treadmill and subsequently hiking up the long flight of stairs 30 times, whipping up an entire three-course meal completely with dessert 15 minutes after the slightest mention that I’m hungry, or going out to dinners, brunch, and a party all in the same weekend, she never ceases her activities. All while I’m having a lazy Saturday, sitting on the sofa catching a Harry Potter marathon. Her age and seniority is not a factor in her daily itinerary— sure she complains about the aches of old age, but she still has the herculean strength to strike flies dead in an instant, move with incredible dexterity and agility to grasp her phone at the slightest whis-
Opinion 5
anthology Constant Self-Improvement is Key By Anthony Chen
per of a ring, with a teenage penchant for waking up incredibly early and going to sleep in the wee hours of the morning. Her eagerness to venture into new fields (she discovered touch screens on cell phones this week and recently added Friends to her ever-expanding repertoire of television shows) often puts individuals a third of her age to shame. As we seniors move through second semester at full speed, it’s conceivable to ease into the comfortable condition so often dubbed “senioritis,” living up to the hype after finally attaining “second semester senior” status after seven semesters of toiling through all our laborious academic endeavors. It’s tempting to maintain an attitude of apathy, as whispers of “nothing I do matters anymore, as long as I pass my classes so I won’t get rescinded” are evidently growing louder in the hallways, but it should not be this way—never mind the upcoming AP tests and that what we learn in college and the future only builds upon what we learned in high school—but it’s our last semester at MSJ: it’s an opportunity to absorb everything we can from our high school community. It’s something we should all grasp and value as second semester seniors, making the most of our last three months as high school students. Even though we’re finally second semester seniors, make sure to make the most of our statuses: it’s never too late to try something new, challenge ourselves to learn something complex. and let ourselves fall into a senior-like state. Oh look, Grandma just picked up the latest issue of Popular Science. Guess she wants to learn about stem cell research now. ▪
Send letters to the editor to opinion@thesmokesignal.org
Opinion Editor In my years here at MSJ I’ve noticed a rather shortsighted mentality concerning competition that is counterproductive to every individual who has it. In the scheme of things, each test is a competition that leads up to competition in grades, competition in extracurricular activities, competition in college admissions, and perhaps competition in life. Viewing it as “you versus the world” though, will only hurt you. Too often, students care about minute details, like scoring slightly higher than others on a test. There are always those students who, most often in jest, vaunt their higher test scores, but in the big picture none of that matters anyway. So what if you scored a couple points higher or lower than someone else? Tests are a better metric of effort than intelligence, and whether you make the curve for a semester grade is entirely the result of hedging risk (but that’s another story). Comparing yourself to a class of 30, a class of 500, or even a school of 2000 doesn’t matter because there’s a whole world out there. There are schools like Phillips Andover and Whitney High School out there. And what happens when you take the best from the world and put them together? That’ll happen in college and later on in professional careers. Until then, you’re stuck here. Don’t be fazed by minor, day-today swings. To inflate your ego with such miniscule happenings like setting the curve is to delude yourself with images of grandeur;
celebrating the smallest of skirmishes is a great way to forget the war. The king of ants is still an ant. Ignorance is bliss, but reality is much better for you. There’s nothing wrong with viewing college admissions as a competition. By the definition of “competition,” that’s what it is. Where people go wrong is when they view it as a zero sum game. Others should not have to lose for you to win; focus on yourself, and not others. With this mentality, it’s hardly even a competition anymore. The point is not to beat others but to improve yourself. For that kind of mentality to be effective, once again you’ll have to consider the denizens of the world and not just MSJ. The best way to improve is to find people who are better than you in every single way. Find people who are smarter, stronger, and sexier, and make them role models instead of making excuses about your own life or hating them. Don’t accept mediocrity, and don’t celebrate mediocrity; keep your ego in check and constantly improve yourself. You’ll go a lot farther this way than tricking yourself and protecting your feelings and pride. You shouldn’t be doing things simply for college admissions in order to beat others. Don’t do things just to add them to a list for your college application. In the grand scheme of life, it’s a waste of time and effort. Do things you like doing, and invest in yourself; a dash of competition here and there, used correctly, can be an effective supplemental motivator. ▪ Send letters to the editor to
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A scandal at Claremont McKenna By Sonali Toppur
actual inflation seems to be “the work of one person.” Staff Writer The main question now is why the admission dean would risk the integrity and respect of the When Claremont McKenna acknowledged that their admissions dean had inflated the school’s SAT school merely to raise SAT scores by a few points? numbers for six years, the news shook the college Ten points is similar to answering one more quesadmissions world. The news resulted in the elite tion right, changing someone from the 94th perCalifornia liberal arts school being pulled lower on centile to maybe the 95th. As we look towards the long-term effects of all college ranking lists including the prominent U.S. Weekly. One list, Kiplinger, decided to go as far this scandal on future admissions, it isn’t looking too good for Claremont McKenna. Being dropped as to remove the school from its selection entirely. However, more worries seem to be stemming from college ranking lists hurts the school by defrom this scandal: if Claremont McKenna reported creasing it’s publicity. Claremont McKenna will faulty SAT scores to the Department of Education, have less exposure to future students, and even if the department could suspend student aid and the they are exposed to the college, it may be in only college’s accreditor could choose to suspend accredi- a negative light. This inflation of SAT scores may tation. This is a common policy on dealing with a prompt some new rules and guidelines around subschool that breaks the Department of Education’s mitting admissions data for colleges nationwide, rules, since it publishes consumer-oriented college reforming data verification methods. This incident offers a warning to all prospective data on its college navigation site and doesn’t want students who place a great deal of importance on the validity of their data to be in question. Former admission Dean Richard Vos inflated college rank and data. After all, Claremont McKClaremont McKenna’s annual SAT scores by 10 enna isn’t the first college to be caught attempting to 20 points per test section. According to a state- to boost rank and attract higher caliber students. ment from President Pamela Gann, “For the fall Clemson University went under fire for purposely 2010 class, which is the most recent year that has increasing the number of small classes at the exbeen reported generally to the public, the [college] pense of expanding already large classes, since havreported a combined median of 1,410 [out of a pos- ing many classes with fewer than 20 students can sible 1600 on the SAT’s math and critical reading boost rank sizably. Baylor University practically sections] when the actual should have been 1,400, bribed its incoming freshman to retake the SAT, and reported a 75th percentile score of 1,510 when raising the school’s average SAT scores by 10 points. Colleges realize the value of a high rank and the actual should have been 1,480.” Claremont McKenna’s decision to acknowledge the following publicity, so they attempt to climb as the scandal instead of denying it has made the case high up on the list as possible. As long as students less serious. WASC President Ralph A. Wolff notes understand that the system is human, and that that the falsified data don’t mask any fundamental there are people behind those reported figures, they weakness at Claremont McKenna, it just makes al- can appropriately judge how much value college ready good test scores look a little better. Also, the rank really is. ▪
staff writer vivian jair
staff writer anusha rijhsinghani