Student
Achievements Pennington students achieved goals beyond the classroom despite COVID-19. Though they had to remain physically distant from one another, students made the most of their time outside of classes. Here are some highlights of Pennington student achievements this spring.
to what many viewers are used to seeing on reality television: “petty and often cruel conflict interactions” between contestants, judges, and hosts. In addition to the nine winners, the judges also chose eight runners-up and eighteen honorable mentions. Of those eighteen honorable mentions, two other Pennington School juniors were also selected for their creative pieces. Safa Morrison ’21 wrote a review on the live-action version of The Lion King, “Live-Action Lion King: 1 Hakuna out of 5 Matatas," and Anjollie Ramakrishna ’21 wrote about the musician Kanye West with her piece titled, “Is Kanye West Being Born Again?” According to The New York Times, students 13–19 were asked to "play critic and write an original review" for the contest. The writers had the ability to write about anything that fits into the category of creative expression that The New York Times reviews. Students worked on the reviews in Stephanie Cohen's AP English: Language and Composition class. Congratulations to all on their achievements!
• We had one student, Charlie Chen ’22, who finished tied for an individual top international score. Twelve of our students had perfect scores during at least one of the four monthly subcontests. • Six of the seven seniors on the team are planning on majoring in computer science or data sciences as they prepare for college next year. That number includes three who made that decision in their senior year after their first exposure to the field here at Pennington. The twenty students who participated on the team this year are: Akshay Arun ’22, James Cai ’22, Charlie Chen ’22, Alexander Huang-Menders ’21, Ben Jiang ’22, Masha Khartchenko ’20, Tarun Kumar ’21, Taylor Li ’20, Sam Lovvoll ’21, Jennifer Lu ’20, Caroline Muscara ’21, Deep Patel ’20, Rohit Pothacamury ’21, Ben Robertson ’21, Sydney Shah ’20, Jack Wang ’21, Anita Yang ’20, Anna Zhang ’22, David Zhang ’22, and Yiren Zhou ’20.
Computer Science team repeats as international champions! After completing all of the four contests of the American Computer Science League (ACSL), The Pennington School’s Computer Science Contest team is now ranked at the top of the international leaderboard with a perfect score of 120. Our team was one of only three schools out of the 96 teams to attain a perfect score through each of the four subcontests, marking the second time we have earned a perfect yearlong score and a spot as a cochampion.
Fox wins New York Times essay contest Madeline Fox ’21 was selected as one of only nine winners out of 2,300 entries in The New York Times “Fifth Annual Student Review Contest for High Schoolers.” Fox's review, “‘The Great British Baking Show’ May Ruin Your Taste for Reality Television” highlights the “good-natured humor” and “celebration of people and food” in the BBC’s program The Great British Baking Show. She contrasted the series
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Highlights from this year include: • We had twenty students (a Pennington record) who consistently participated in the team throughout the year. • Not only did we persevere through the COVID-19 situation, but we also thrived. Students started meeting virtually even during Spring Break, and our prep sessions (with optional times for students in China and for the USA) and hackathons continued with heightened enthusiasm.
Pennington Magazine Spring/Summer 2020
This year the ACSL held its first-ever online post-season All-Star contest for individual students throughout the world. Thirteen members of Pennington’s team, an extraordinary number, qualified for invitations to a demanding one-day contest of coding and computer science knowledge on May 23. Two of Pennington’s representatives were awarded prizes: Deep Patel earned a silver level, and Alexander Huang-Menders earned a bronze level.
