Congrats to Our National Merit Scholarship Recipients!

Congratulations to seniors Meg Yuan and Andrew Yang, who were named scholarship recipients of the National Merit Scholarship program this spring. National Merit Scholarship winners are among a very select group of students with high PSAT scores and strong academic records. More than 1 million high school juniors across the country take the test and compete for the scholarship.

Seven Hills Celebrates Signing Day

Congratulations to our senior student athletes and one alumni who participated in Signing Day! On April 14, Seven Hills virtually celebrated our student athletes who committed to compete at the university level this fall.

Abby Heck – Cross country and track at Tulane University

Dhruv Mahajan – Cross country and track at Johns Hopkins University

Scott Williams – Soccer at University of Virginia

Emma Cohen – Soccer at University of Rochester

Matthew Coulson – Swimming at Rhodes College

Christopher Maring – Swimming at Carleton College

Tim Kalin – Swimming at The Ohio State University

Curtis Harrison ’20 – Basketball at Miami University

Exploring Themes of Magic-realism and the Fantastic in AP Spanish

Literature Students in Ismael Godoy’s Upper School AP Spanish Literature class read and experience complex texts from the Middle Ages through the 20^th century throughout the school year. Godoy said the students’ readings typically focus on genres such as poetry, prose, and theater of the absurd, to name a few. “The themes we cover are not only universal but diverse as well, such as societies in contact, the constructions of gender, time and space, interpersonal relationships, the dual nature of the individual, and literary creation,” said Godoy. He said his students are currently reading “Abriendo Puertas: Ampliando Perspectivas” by Wayne Scott Bowen and Bonnie Tucker Bowen. He said students will soon explore themes, such as fantastic, the dual nature of the individual, magic realism, in texts written by Carlos Fuentes, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, and Garcia Márquez. “Besides learning about diverse cultures and time periods, these deep studies and readings in Spanish allow the students to improve their listening, reading, and writing skills, as well as be able to compose expository passages and express ideas orally with accuracy and fluency.”

Congratulations to New Members of Cum Laude Society

The Upper School honored its 16 new inductees into the Seven Hills chapter of Cum Laude, a national honor society that recognizes academic excellence, during a prerecorded, virtual ceremony that took place in early April. New members are juniors Sarah Croog, Kathryn Guo, Anke Liang, Jianyi Hou, Jenny Hu, Julia Moser, Alexandra Nathan, Ella Jo Piersma, and Manan Vij; and seniors, Grace Arya, Hannah Elluru, Wesley Gardner, Annie Icenhower, Charles Ringel, Caroline Routh, and Holly Weisfelder. The event’s guest speaker was Seven Hills alumna, physician-scientist Dr. Amy Sherman ’06.

Click here to read remarks about our Cum Laude inductees.

Real Applications in Mandarin

As part of the practical application of the world language studies program, students in Mia Wu’s Chinese language class are studying the Mandarin characters related to public health, including vocabulary words such as “social distancing,” “mask,” and “symptoms,” to name a few. “We are learning to read and write the characters of these public health references because they are so appropriate right now and being used all over the world,” said Wu. “The students are also doing skits related to the terminology. While some of the students read aloud the characters and act out their meaning, their classmates are asked to write the words for further comprehension and application.”