They have WHAT at other KIPP Schools?

Both KIPP high schools in California – KIPP King Collegiate and KIPP San Jose Collegiate – despite the 45 minute distance between them, have lots of similarities and differences.

I’m a sophomore at KIPP King, and two weeks ago, I shadowed a sophomore named Trisha at KIPP San Jose Collegiate.  My first impression wasn’t what I expected as I walked on the campus.  I've never been to a school that has to share their campus with a much larger school of 3,000 people.  KSJC shares space with their neighbor school, Independence High School, and the entire KSJC campus is portables.

I was expecting KSJC to be different, but I wasn’t sure how different it would be.  I went to Anatomy, Spanish, and Chemistry classes.  In Spanish 2, the teacher gave us a quiz on indirect and direct pronouns, vocabulary, and the "a" persona.  I took the quiz with everyone else and received a passing grade. Then, he taught about the "Day of the Dead" or Dia de los Muertos, which was interesting because my Spanish teacher has discussed this topic with us as well earlier this same week. 

It was interesting to hear Trisha and her classmates describe what it was like to go to KSJC; the rules, the activities, because I was comparing everything to KIPP King.   So many of the details are different:

•           For one, both schools have plenty of sports programs like soccer, baseball, basketball, and cross country. In addition to these sports, KSJC also has softball and volleyball and cheerleading.   If you’re not a sports person, both schools have lots of extra-curricular clubs to join.

•       As for uniforms, here at King, students in the senior class wear professional dress on Mondays, and on Fridays, the rest of the school has the opportunity to wear jeans and college t-shirts. Similarly, our neighbors in San Jose have formal Mondays and earn the privilege to wear jeans and college shirts on Fridays.

•       After all their hard work in school, both King and KSJC both have all-school games for fun! Once a year, San Jose students have the House of Olympics games, where the teams are divided by the schools’ four core values: leadership, resilience, excellence, and responsibility. At King, we host the Quarter Games every quarter (of course), and the teams are divided by prides, and compete against each other.  

After a day of shadowing at KSJC, it was definitely worth the drive, and very fun because I had the opportunity to meet new people, especially my shadow Trisha.  Despite the similarities and differences, in the end, it’s good to know we are all still a team and family.

A Giant Win: The City Gets a KIPP High School

Next summer, graduates of KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy and KIPP Bayview Academy will finally have a KIPP high school in the city to call home.

KIPP made history in San Francisco this past July by securing a high school charter with a 6-1 vote by the SFUSD school board. 

The new high school, named KIPP San Francisco College Prep, will open next August with approximately 120 freshmen.  Caroline Gifford, who was most recently on the leadership team at KIPP San Jose Collegiate, will lead the school. 

Look out for news later on this school year as SF College Prep secures a school building and facilities, as eighth graders from SF Bay and Bayview continue to enroll (who will be the first graduates of the first KIPP high school in San Francisco!), and as SF College Prep hosts its first lottery for final spots in the freshman class this spring!

If you have a sibling at KIPP San Francisco Bay or KIPP Bayview and would like them to enroll at KIPP San Francisco College Prep for next Fall, please visit the KIPP Bay Area Schools website for more information and enrollment forms!

Let's get personal (statements).

Hasn't time in high school gone by super fast?! Seniors, it seems like yesterday we were freshmen! Better yet, in middle school! Now is that crazy moment of the year where we're applying to college and getting super anxious, nervous, and excited, but let's not forget stressed out! Writing the personal statement may seem impossible, but it certainly is possible with a few tips and advice. 

Now that I'm almost done with mine and about to send it, I realize that it wasn't as hard as I made it seem at the beginning. My KIPP Through College advisor, Ms. Ureña, gave me some very helpful tips that I know will be useful to you as well. 

Firstly, you should pick three things you know for a fact you want colleges to know about you after they finish reading it, such as being first generation to go to college and what that means to you, troubles you've had during high school and how you were able to persevere through them, etc... When you choose three, elaborate on them and always remember to show more than you tell. Give examples of what you talk about and always remember to make your essay flow! Flowing is good! 

Also, if you have a college in mind that you would really like to go to, research the values of that college, see what they look for in a prospective student and find ways to incorporate that in your essay, but of course discretely, never say a name of a college in your statement when you're going to be sending it to multiple schools; you might just leave the name of the other school in your essay! 

One more thing, when writing the essay, make sure to make it concise and stay on topic.  Disorganization in your writing is never good! If it's helpful for you, make an outline before you start to organize your thoughts.

Don't overanalyze this and think of it as a burden. You're actually just talking about yourself and being real on paper, and what's better than talking about yourself, right? I hope these were some helpful tips and remember that if you have further questions, contact your college advisor, they always have helpful information. Use your resources to write this, the internet, the library, go old school and out of your box! And finally, remember to just be you!

Abigail Fisher v. Texas University

Twenty-two year old Caucasian female Abigail Fisher sued the University of Texas in 2008 because she claimed that the university did not admit her due to her ethnicity. Fisher’s lawsuit around collegiate affirmative action policies has now been appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.  Arguments for this case began just this past October.

Affirmative action is a policy where race, gender, origin and sexual orientation are all weighted before accepting people into a workplace or an educational facility. The purpose of this policy is to benefit minorities and allow them opportunities in education and careers. Fisher claims that the school violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. She argues that less eligible minorities were accepted in her place because she is white. 

The University of Texas upholds a policy called “The Top Ten Percent Plan” where they accept students in the top ten percent of their Texas high school in academic performance and college entrance exam scores. After those students are chosen, further acceptances are not based on race, but it is regarded in the decision for official acceptances. The school claims Fisher was denied because she did not meet the school’s academic requirement with her SAT score of 1180. 

Here in California, Proposition 209 was passed in 1996, which says that race and ethnicity cannot influence the admission process. Studies have shown that through the ban of racial and ethnic influence, diversity in University of California colleges has increased. In other words, there is a larger amount of minorities present in colleges today.

If Fisher wins, affirmative action will be deemed unconstitutional, when it was originally justified to promote cultural diversity in the Supreme Court. Supporters of affirmative action believe that it does give universities the opportunity to diversify and minorities the opportunity to attend college. Others may question the justification of whether it is right if a student with better grades and test scores than another student should be denied a place in college because of race.

The University of Texas upholds the motto "Disciplina Praesidium Civitatis," which means that “education is the safeguard of democracy.” Through this controversial case, we can only hope colleges stay true to their values, achieved only through the practices that stand for the common good of students and the future of the world. 

Dispatches from a Year Abroad

In between his senior year of high school and his freshman year of college at Wesleyan University, Tai Taliaoa, KIPP Bayview Alumni 2012, applied to spend a year abroad in Japan through the Rotary Club.  In the KTC Newsletter this year, we’ll be featuring some of the highlights and lessons learned from his time in Japan, as he begins his journey through college halfway across the globe.

Konichiwa!

Do you know what konichiwa means? For those of you who haven’t heard, konichiwa (koh-NEE-chee-wah) means good afternoon. In Japan, people generally use three of many forms of aisatsu, or greetings, depending on the time of the day: konichiwa or ohaiyougozaimasu (oh-hah-YOH go-zigh-moss) for “good morning” and oyasuminasai (oh-yah-soo-mee-nah-sigh) for “good night.” Try to remember these words and their meanings, since I might test you on them next time!

 
October has been a month of many exciting and stressful moments.  I definitely appreciate being able to relax with my friends and family and dog since recently finishing my midterm examinations. Midterms were just as I thought they would be: difficult. To put it simply, it was a humbling experience. Despite my best efforts to study, my worst enemy, Kanji, which are written Japanese characters, thwarted my efforts. Seeing unfamiliar Kanji that I couldn’t read prevented me from being able to answer questions on all of my examinations, regardless if I knew the answer to the question or not. 

Sadly, I failed all the tests. Kanji, without a doubt, will be the most difficult part of learning the language since Japanese characters have no similarities to English letters. 

Fortunately for me, my schedule will change now that midterms are over. Two of my classes, Japanese History and Japanese Classics, will be replaced with studying the language instead. During these classes, I’ll go to the library and learn Kanji, Japanese Grammar, Japanese Words, and some Japanese History with English teachers for the remainder of the school year.  This will definitely improve my Japanese skills tremendously, and I intend to take full advantage of it.

Lastly, I’d like to tell all of you about my trip with my Host Rotary Club to the newly built and amazing Tokyo Skytree. From the top of the 2,080-foot tower, visitors get a beautiful sky view of Tokyo, and inside of the tower are restaurants and shops. Seeing a night view of Tokyo from so high up in the sky was one of the most beautiful and memorable experiences I’ll have for the rest of my life; not to mention eating good food at Tokyo Skytree’s restaurant, taking pictures with my host dad at the photo machines, and buying souvenirs for my family back home.  Overall, my trip to Tokyo Skytree was wonderful, and I hope to visit there again soon.

From the top of the Tokyo Skytree

My host family and host Rotary club are all amazing and wonderful people, similar to my amazing sponsor Rotary club and family back home. I couldn’t be any luckier to be around such great people in my life, whether they come from Japan or America or anywhere in the world.

I hope all of you are doing well back in the Bay!

Cheers,

Tai

Have you met your KIPP Cousins?

It was like any normal flight: find your seat, place your backpack in the top bin, sit down, relax, and wait until you arrive at your destination. I was on a layover flight in Atlanta, two hours away from a summer program called July Experience held at Davidson College. A few seats over, I overheard two students discussing their GPA, school, and choice of colleges, while I closed my eyes and drifted to sleep.

Once I arrived in North Carolina, I was greeted by a smiling woman, Irma, with a distinct red Davidson shirt. She hugged each and every student as they arrived, and promised that we were about to have an amazing experience together. I conversed with the other students who were waiting for the shuttle bus until someone said the word “KIPP.”  

“Hey, I’m from KIPP!” one of the students exclaimed.  Turns out, the students I overhead on my flight were KIPP students from Atlanta!  One of the students from the plane asked, “You’re from KIPP, too?”   Suddenly, we were all shouting that we were from KIPP! Who knew that I would be waiting for the shuttle bus with my fellow KIPP cousins from across the country? We began talking about where we were from, our schools, and how KIPP has affected our lives so far. 

The first thing that caught my attention about Davidson – and North Carolina – was how kind the people were: our shuttle bus driver started a conversation with Irma about our program and where we were all from, and the Davidson faculty and R.A’s were waiting to greet us with welcoming arms when we arrived.  They even gave us an eloquent banquet to kick off the program.

At July Experience, students take two college courses.  Since I’m most interested in math and music, I picked What’s Happening in Mathematics and Listening to Fear. Even though this is not my first time taking classes taught by professors, it was my first time buying a textbook and realizing that the professor actually wrote it. I had an urge to get my music professor’s autograph since his name was on the front cover.  

I felt especially close with my classmates and professor in my math class.  One week, our assignment was to build repeating boxes by solely folding business cards (our lesson was fractal geometry at the time).  Making over 100 boxes took hours, so my classmates and I decided to build the boxes together. We left lunch early to go to the mathematics class in order to finish up our boxes.  We cracked jokes with each other while working on our boxes. Even our professor joined in on the jokes. 

For anyone who is interested in attending a summer program, I would recommend July Experience at Davidson College. Most importantly, I will never forget meeting my fellow KIPP cousins from California, Washington D.C., Georgia, and Texas.  

Even though the students could be loud and energetic (our ‘energizer’ was chanting our signature song “Hey Burrito”), I enjoyed the calm and peaceful Davidson campus. Everyone had the opportunity to shop around Davidson, attend lectures in actual classrooms, and study in the library – we really did get a slice of what it’s like to be an actual student at Davidson. In the past, I have travelled to different states in order to attend summer programs, and compared to the other opportunities, July Experience gave us more freedom, responsibility, and prepared us to be well-rounded college students.  

I still keep in touch with my KIPP cousins from July Experience.  Now, we just have to keep the “Hey Burrito” chant going on Facebook.