<p>PS: If the OP feels comfortable identifying his/her state, maybe someone in this forum could help locate a nearby school that is still offering the exam.</p>
<p>I agree with the OP’s frustration, but why did you do all that studying without first checking that the teacher would, in fact, be sponsoring the event?</p>
<p>There is a little confusion on this thread about what competition the OP is referring to. It is not the Science Olympiad, which is a team event and does require some level of commitment on the part of the sponsor–although that level varies greatly from school to school.</p>
<p>There is not that much involved with the USABO (Biology Olympiad), but unfortunately a student cannot–officially–enroll the school or make arrangements to procure the test. It is quite understandable that the OP thought the teacher would take care of things.</p>
<p>OP, like the other parents here, I hope you have learned the important take-home lesson. If it is important, don’t assume someone else is going to get the job done. Polite inquiries from you as the deadline approached would have been OK in my opinion, something along the lines of “I’m wondering if there is something I could do to help get the paperwork filed?”</p>
<p>My son had an experience somewhat similar to yours. He was one of the top 10 finalists of our state’s National Geographic Bee. So, of course, he was looking forward to the following year’s chance to repeat. Unfortunately, the teacher did not take notice when the registration materials arrived, and despite the fact that son mentioned it to him months before the event, the teacher did not get the school registered. Unlike your case, the teacher was somewhat apologetic, and made sure the school got registered the next year, but that was too late for my son, who was too old by then.</p>
<p>But, son learned a lesson. When he discovered, the following year (9th grade), that the teacher who had been sponsoring the Knowledge Master tournament had resigned, he figured out how to get the school signed up himself, organized the team, reserved the computers on competition days, etc etc. I believe he broke some rules pretending to be a sponsor, but the head of the school was highly amused and impressed. At any rate, he never assumes anyone is taking care of things anymore.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about your disappointment.</p>
<p>My concern for you would have to do with the fact that if your parents get involved, this teacher may dislike you more–and refuse to make your captain. Realize that if he gets in trouble because of you, it may hurt you. Unless the complaint is 100% anonymous, I don’t think you can win this.</p>
<p>My kid was in the OP situation constantly since 8th grade. It was a real pain and disappointment. But you cannot blame on the teachers because the public school system does not allow them to volunteer their time. When they proctor the tests they have to make arrangement for someone to take care of their classrooms. If you are strong and advance to the next levels of competition, the teachers will have more difficulty because the higher levels require longer test time (from 3 hours to 2 days). </p>
<p>On the other hand, it’s not easy to take the tests at another school because some Olympiad ranking and selections are based on the school team and you cannot be part of that team.</p>
<p>Herman,</p>
<p>" I may choose not to do this next year because of it. "</p>
<p>Actually, I think you should, now that you’ve worked out. My reasons being:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If one or more of your colleges elects to put you in wait list hell, it gives you another classy bullet for your ‘let me in’ letter.</p></li>
<li><p>Karma. If you get to do the exam, maybe a couple of juniors will, too. Good karma never hurts.</p></li>
<li><p>Fun. For reasons I fail to comprehend, some kids (like my son) seem to actually enjoy competitive test-taking. He lost his mind senior year and did everything - Science Olympiad, Chemistry Olympiad, Envirothon, Academic Decathon. It was crazy … but he had a blast. </p></li>
<li><p>Stubborness. You worked for the test … you should own that test. </p></li>
<li><p>Dealing with adults. Getting this set up and getting the teacher enthusiastic will teach you a lot about leading from behind. An important skill!</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Herman,
Your post #19 showed a lot of maturity and insight. I hope that you will participate in the competition next year.</p>
<p>The disappointing experience that you just went through has put you way ahead of many adults in terms of knowing what to do to get something that you want, but that’s under someone else’s official control.</p>
<p>Herman, it sounds like this has been a learning experience for you. Congratulations for making it one. I agree that having your parents lodge a complaint against the teacher would be counter-productive; however, if you are sufficiently motivated, it is not too late to reap some college admissions benefit from this episode! <g></g></p>
<p>You could start a “Science Olympiad” group now, and recruit other students to join with the goal of competing next year, and in the future. You could form a study group, and include other science-oriented activities (field trips, participating in longitudinal studies, etc.) and even service projects (bringing interesting science stuff to kids in your town’s elementary and middle schools, for example). A great way to start a team of this kind is to get together with a couple of interested friends and brainstorm a list of individuals to invite to an exploratory gathering involving a meal. (No commitment upfront.) A pizza or ice cream sundae party might be attractive. When people get together, enthusiasm tends to mount, and a personal invitation is ALWAYS more effective than posting a notice for “People interested in X.”</p>
<p>Good luck, whatever your decide.</p>
<p>There is a big piece missing in your story. On the one hand, you ‘expressed interest’ in doing this extracurricular to a teacher just a few weeks before the deadline to register. Yet at the same time, you claim to have logged 100+ hours of prep. The irresponsible one here is you, and your teacher isn’t negligent.</p>
<p>Expressing an interest in doing something isn’t a guarantee that your teacher is going to jump up and beg to take on more responsibility. You said you were interested, but nobody else was, and since you clearly weren’t working with this teacher to prepare, they figured there wasn’t enough interest from enough students to make it worthwhile. Obviously, this teacher cares - they have organized this before, but it turns out your school, at this time, doesn’t have enough people interested. Blame your peers, but your teacher isn’t negligent. Where was your responsibility in all of this? What did you do to make this happen? Did you organize other students, did you make a plan with this teacher to prep for this event, did you make a plan for how you could be involved with making this happen, or did you tell him you wanted it, and now he is negligent for not giving it to you?</p>
<p>I am not sure you got the life lesson - you seem upset that the head of the olympiad didn’t respond the way you wanted her to, and you aren’t going to participate next year because it didn’t go your way this year. My friend, college may come as a very, very big shock to you.</p>
<p>I agree with your comments theothersideII. I took something for granted, and I did not pursue what I wanted to the fullest degree. Home-schooled students are instructed to contact nearby high schools and pay the registration fee. I could have done something similar, taking care of everything but the teacher signature/teacher administering the exam.</p>
<p>I don’t believe at all that the teacher was entirely at fault, but he nevertheless did not elect to respond to my email for several days. Of course I should have gone the next day to make sure he got it, but since I did not, I’m pretty sure he was not waiting for me to speak with him in person before he responded…instead I believe that he just didn’t care, and frankly he has every right to not care if all he wants to do is fulfill his teaching responsibilities. But I know him as a teacher who consistently spends time with his students to make sure all needs are met, and such inaction was not expected. Ironically, I am not his student this year.</p>
<p>The head of the olympiad was extremely impolite. Whether I am some selfish high schooler is irrelevant, because I received no help, information, or explanation. At the time there were 4 days left to administer the olympiad — over half of the time still left. But according to her, its too late. Done with conversation.</p>
<p>I guess its premature to say what I’ll be doing in my 2nd semester of senior year, and what my participation in USABO will be. Not sure what you meant by your last comment theothersideII - I guess my venting is interfering with my ability to learn a lesson…since its definitely a lot easier to externalize problems stemming from within. I think with some time, it will sink in.</p>
<p>EDIT: Thus far I have not been able to find a nearby high school (very few administer this in the area anyway). And my parents never sent that letter.</p>
<p>WHen my D was in middle school, the did the “speech contests” at different HS…it was a big deal to attend</p>
<p>anyway, the teachers decided to not bother doing it, and even though it was a tradition, didn’t tell anyone</p>
<p>So my D really wanted to do it, she contacted the HS that was doing it, they said sure, come on over, and don’t worry if you aren’t connected to your school, you can some “independent” </p>
<p>My Ds middle school had a FIT, it was scary how bizarre they were over the whole event…as if it would embarrass them…they CHOSE not to participate because they were “too busy” with other things, but didn’t even let anyone know</p>
<p>They made me and my D cry when they yelled at her for contacting the other school, who said they were shocked our school wasn’t participating, as no one told them…</p>
<p>If the middle school had just said, we can’t do it, does someone else want to step up and corridinate it?</p>
<p>To this day I am still irked…but my D learned a lesson- take charge and if you really want something, don’t let people block your path</p>
<p>So keep at it…go to the TOP…you have nothing to lose at all by contacting the bigwigs…so go forth and contact everyone you can to be able to participate</p>
<p>I know you have to deal with that teacher, so warn him that you really want to do it, so you are going to try, and that you understand that it was just too much this year, but you want to try, that way, he won’t be blindsided and he will know you aren’t trying to make him look bad, that way, he will be on your side</p>
<p>theothersideII:</p>
<p>Don’t be so harsh on the OP. I am sure the teacher did not want to get involved. To be more precise, he wanted to avoid it at all costs. He may have organized the contest in the earlier years because he had the will to help. But he may find that his volunteer time give him trouble with the school administrators. Basically, the school administrators are more interested in making kids that have trouble with test scores to meet the No Child Left Behind criteria than to help a few students who wants to move ahead. The teacher may have organized the contest in earlier years because of some parental pressure. If the teacher found that there were not enough students interested in the olympiads than he should had told the OP. A true educator should find ways to promote students’ interest in excellence if he/she sees lack of interest among students. I heard some private schools or public schools in wealthy neighborhoods asked students in the entire grade levels to take the exams on the competition day although only a small percentage of students had interest in taking.</p>
<p>The OP wanted to take the USABO (biology olympiad) Open Exam, not participate in Science Olympiad. USABO only requires that the teacher supervise a 1 hour long individual test on one day. It does not require considerable effort on the part of the teacher like science oly would.</p>
<p>no thats definitely not an overreaction. your teacher was very irresponsible. definitely CALL many of the other schools, especially private schools, around you. that way you get a fast answer.</p>
<p>
um, for Bio you really don’t need more than, say, 1 person interested in taking it. -.-</p>
<p>btw, you can come to my school =)</p>
<p>amb3r:
You need to see far beyond USABO. If the school administers USABO for this year then the following years there will be students asking the school to participate in Chemistry Olympiad, Physics Olympiad, Math Olympiad,… And the school is really afraid of these olympiads. Administrators in public schools have to deal with a lot of politics mandated by the school district and state to get rewards and career promotion.</p>
<p>To the OP–Is there a college or community college near you? For next year’s USABO, perhaps there is a faculty member in biological sciences who could offer the test to students from all the high schools in your area. Thinking about the point raised by coolweather, I realized that (for us) a local university offers the first exam in the chemistry olympiad, to students from a multi-county area.</p>
<p>I’m familiar with USAMO, USNCO, etc., but not with Science Olympiad teams. Are they local, statewide, national? Can someone briefly explain how they work? Thanks.</p>
<p>^i think the OP was talking about USABO, which is the bio equivalent</p>
<p>I understand that, but I’m unfamiliar with Science Olympiad teams (none in our school).</p>
<p>wjb, try this link:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.soinc.org/[/url]”>http://www.soinc.org/</a></p>
<p>local/regional/state/national. Teams move up as a whole. About 17 events per team, many of them (most) are done as groups of 2 or 3. Usually about 11 members per team, although teams are welcome to participate even if they are very short-handed; they just won’t score enough points to move on to state.</p>
<p>Wide variety of events, some require constructing robots, Rube Goldberg devices, flying objects, bridges, catapult-like constructions, rockets ahead of time, others are done on the spot: physics and chemistry labs, GPS use events and many others. </p>
<p>My son had a blast with this competition every year from 6th grade on. They always made state, and always ALMOST made nationals, but never did. The only disappointment of his senior year in high school.</p>
<p>Send me a note if you want more info.</p>