NYTimes: Intel Competition - Where Science Rules

Marian
Sat, 10 Mar 2007 11:23:04 +0000

When I was in college more than 30 years ago, I got to know about a half-dozen kids who had gone to Bronx Science.

Most of them had no interest whatsoever in science.

They had gone to Bronx Science not because they cared about science, but because they wanted to avoid going to inferior neighborhood high schools and/or because they were very academic and wanted to be with other students who were very academic (or their parents wanted these things). Bronx Science was the only option available to them (this was before Stuyvesant went co-ed, and these students were girls). If there had been an elite academic school available to them that was not specifically focused on science, they would have enrolled in it rather than going to Bronx Science. But they didn’t have that option.

Are things still this way in NYC? Do kids still go to Bronx Science (or Stuyvesant) not because they love science but because these science schools are the only elite academic programs available to them?

If that’s the way it is, it could account for some of the lack of interest in Intel.

I live in Montgomery County, Maryland. We have a math/science magnet program here, but it isn’t the only elite academic program available to our students. There’s also a selective IB program that attracts the non-science-oriented academic kids, and quite a few of our neighborhood high schools are good enough that an academic-type kid can have a good four years there, without having to enroll in any kind of magnet. Our kids have non-science choices. Thus, those in the science program tend to be those who actually like science.

Our school system had 15 Intel semifinalists this year, 12 of whom were in the science magnet.