Post by Charity on Feb 15, 2005 13:52:05 GMT -5
Well-tested teenager aces seven AP exams
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Moorestown home pupil nets $3,000 scholarship
By MATT KATZ
Courier-Post Staff
MOORESTOWN
It began as an experiment in eighth grade.
Lori Snell thought she'd challenge her son, Jake, and let him take the college-level Advanced Placement test in chemistry.
Jake, who has been home-schooled for most of his scholastic life, got the best possible score - a five.
"He did so well, we just let him loose," Lori Snell said.
Jake started taking more of the nationally standardized AP tests, scoring a five on the next six exams: biology, statistics, calculus, environmental science and two different computer science tests.
Now a 16-year-old high school junior, Snell has been recognized as one of the best AP test takers in the country.
The Siemens Foundation, in conjunction with the test administrators, the College Board, named Snell one of the 24 nationwide recipients of a $3,000 scholarship for outstanding performance on the math and science AP exams. He is eligible for a $5,000 scholarship in the spring.
"It was kind of surprising when they called and said, `Hey, you got the scholarship,' " Snell said.
But Snell took the news in stride and turned toward his next tests. He is now considering
taking the physics, European history and English language tests.
Will he get perfect fives on those tests, too?
"Well, I'm going to try," he said.
Snell is tutored by his mother at home and takes practice exams before each test.
He attributes his success on these tests and others - he got a near-perfect 1570 on his SATs - to his home schooling.
"It really opens up a lot of doors I wouldn't have in traditional school setting," he said.
Specifically, he said, it helps him pace his studies.
"If there's something you don't understand, you can concentrate on it until you understand, and then proceed," he said.
His mother, Lori, an accountant by trade, said she prepares her lessons for Jake - and his two younger home-schooled siblings - by immersing herself in the subject areas. She said she moves at their pace.
"You can accelerate him as fast as you need to, and for him that makes it more interesting," she said.
According to the Siemens Foundation, an Iselin, Middlesex County-based group that provides more than $1 million in scholarships annually, about 300,000 students take the math and science AP exams annually. Only the 24 top scorers were chosen as winners.
"These students are really quite extraordinary," said the foundation's Marie Gentile.
Each year, only one or two of the winning students have been home-schooled, she said. But unlike Snell, most of those students were home-schooled only in the lower grades, not in high school.
Snell went to elementary school in Moorestown before his mother home-schooled him from fifth to eighth grades. During the first two years of high school, he attended Holy Cross High School in Delran but resumed home schooling in September.
"I wanted to pursue other academic opportunities," he said. "I think I am able to do other things I wouldn't have had the chance to do if I had stayed in high school."
For example, Snell is taking classes in digital circuits, machine assembly language and anatomy at Burlington County College.
Snell rejected the perception that home-schooled students lack socialization skills. He said he has friends and does fencing at the Fencing Academy of South Jersey in Cherry Hill.
He also said that at Burlington County College, he is "at a point now where I am sort of blending in with the college students."
"It's not like they stare at me and ask me, `What's your age?' " he said. "I think for the opportunity that it gives me, it's well worth it."
Snell is considering studying engineering in college - at Yale, Princeton or Harvard - and then going on to medical school.
As he moves toward those goals, he will keep the same mind-set he had when taking the chemistry AP exam back in eighth grade.
"You have to be motivated," he said. "If you're not motivated you're not going to get anything done."
www.courierpostonline.com/news/sout...ey/m021505a.htm
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Moorestown home pupil nets $3,000 scholarship
By MATT KATZ
Courier-Post Staff
MOORESTOWN
It began as an experiment in eighth grade.
Lori Snell thought she'd challenge her son, Jake, and let him take the college-level Advanced Placement test in chemistry.
Jake, who has been home-schooled for most of his scholastic life, got the best possible score - a five.
"He did so well, we just let him loose," Lori Snell said.
Jake started taking more of the nationally standardized AP tests, scoring a five on the next six exams: biology, statistics, calculus, environmental science and two different computer science tests.
Now a 16-year-old high school junior, Snell has been recognized as one of the best AP test takers in the country.
The Siemens Foundation, in conjunction with the test administrators, the College Board, named Snell one of the 24 nationwide recipients of a $3,000 scholarship for outstanding performance on the math and science AP exams. He is eligible for a $5,000 scholarship in the spring.
"It was kind of surprising when they called and said, `Hey, you got the scholarship,' " Snell said.
But Snell took the news in stride and turned toward his next tests. He is now considering
taking the physics, European history and English language tests.
Will he get perfect fives on those tests, too?
"Well, I'm going to try," he said.
Snell is tutored by his mother at home and takes practice exams before each test.
He attributes his success on these tests and others - he got a near-perfect 1570 on his SATs - to his home schooling.
"It really opens up a lot of doors I wouldn't have in traditional school setting," he said.
Specifically, he said, it helps him pace his studies.
"If there's something you don't understand, you can concentrate on it until you understand, and then proceed," he said.
His mother, Lori, an accountant by trade, said she prepares her lessons for Jake - and his two younger home-schooled siblings - by immersing herself in the subject areas. She said she moves at their pace.
"You can accelerate him as fast as you need to, and for him that makes it more interesting," she said.
According to the Siemens Foundation, an Iselin, Middlesex County-based group that provides more than $1 million in scholarships annually, about 300,000 students take the math and science AP exams annually. Only the 24 top scorers were chosen as winners.
"These students are really quite extraordinary," said the foundation's Marie Gentile.
Each year, only one or two of the winning students have been home-schooled, she said. But unlike Snell, most of those students were home-schooled only in the lower grades, not in high school.
Snell went to elementary school in Moorestown before his mother home-schooled him from fifth to eighth grades. During the first two years of high school, he attended Holy Cross High School in Delran but resumed home schooling in September.
"I wanted to pursue other academic opportunities," he said. "I think I am able to do other things I wouldn't have had the chance to do if I had stayed in high school."
For example, Snell is taking classes in digital circuits, machine assembly language and anatomy at Burlington County College.
Snell rejected the perception that home-schooled students lack socialization skills. He said he has friends and does fencing at the Fencing Academy of South Jersey in Cherry Hill.
He also said that at Burlington County College, he is "at a point now where I am sort of blending in with the college students."
"It's not like they stare at me and ask me, `What's your age?' " he said. "I think for the opportunity that it gives me, it's well worth it."
Snell is considering studying engineering in college - at Yale, Princeton or Harvard - and then going on to medical school.
As he moves toward those goals, he will keep the same mind-set he had when taking the chemistry AP exam back in eighth grade.
"You have to be motivated," he said. "If you're not motivated you're not going to get anything done."
www.courierpostonline.com/news/sout...ey/m021505a.htm