Volume 6 Issue 14

THESTUYVESANTSTANDARD

TO THE COMMUNITIES OF STUYVESANT HIGH SCHOOL, TRIBECA, AND BATTERY PARK CITY

May 22, 2007

“Your School, Your World—Your News”

Visit us at: www.stuystandard.org

VOL. 6, No. 14

How Good is StuyvesantHigh School?

by Jennifer Schlesinger,

editor in chief

SUYTVESANTcontinues on page 4

Changes in Colleges: Yale andMIT

News

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Page 3Summer Movie Preview

A&E

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Page 10Stop Apathy

Opnions

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Page 6ARISTA Elections

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Page 5

Stuyvesant High School is the premiere high schoolin New York City, where students receive an education atone of the highest levels possible. Correct? Maybe not.The New York City Department of Education(DOE) recently paid a consultant from CambridgeEducation in Great Britain to evaluate different publicschools. The DOE wanted school administrators,students, and parents alike to be able to see how theirschool is doing beyond test scores. The DOE’s directorof school quality said, “If you have students who areself-motivated and no matter who you put in front of them, they will still achieve . . . it doesn't necessarilymean that the school is doing a great job,” reflectingthe view that test scores do not always present anaccurate picture.Stuyvesant received a mark of proficient out of the three possible marks: well-developed, proficient,and undeveloped. The overall rating came from ratingsin 28 categories. Stuyvesant received the rating of com-petent in 19 of these categories and poor in one of them.All together, 490 schools in New York City wereevaluated. Forty-nine percent of these schools werefound to be proficient, 42.2 percent were found to bewell developed, and only 8.8 percent were found to beundeveloped.The score of proficient means that Stuyvesant isconveying high expectations to students and parents,engaging its students, and that students respect theirprincipal. Some of the negative aspects found were that

Despite its strong standardized testing records, Stuyvesant High School was only given a mark of proficient.

CollegeNight: ASuccess forthe Future

by Kenneth Lam,

staff writer

COLLEGE NIGHTcontinues on page 3

On May 3, sophomores and juniors crowded Stuyvesant at6:30 p.m. to take their first stepstowards their futures. CollegeNight consisted of fiveinformation sessions, duringwhich students could learn aboutvarious national and internationalcolleges from representatives.The first four sessions wereformal information sessions:representatives providedinformation in brief presentations. The fifth sessionwas an informal session, wherestudents could go up to therepresentatives and ask anyquestions they wanted. Whileacademics and admissionsstatistics were on many students’minds, representatives alsodiscussed life on campus, and themany ways that college can affecta student. As junior ChaitanyaMedicherla put it, “Informationabout colleges can be easilyfound in any handbook, butthrough this college night, we canactually find out what we want toknow, not just some statistics onacceptance rates.” Indeed, manystudents did ask questions aboutcolleges that simply could not beanswered by a book.

Stuyvesant hosted college night, allow-ing juniors and parents the opportunityto speak directly to over 150 collegeand university representatives.

Check out the Standard’s cov-erage of Taste of Chinatown!

The Taste of Chinatown photo essay can be found on page 5

Newly Discovered Planet

by Rammiya Nallainathan

Staff writer

NEW PLANETcontinues on page 9

Just a few months ago, manyscientists all over the world agreedupon the fact that Pluto would notbe considered a planet anymorebecause it was too small in size.Now, scientists have come across anew planet that may change theway we view the solar system.This planet is the third planet of the red dwarf star Gliese 581,so itis being calledGliese 581c.Since the 1990s, scientistsfrom around the world have beenfinding extrasolar planets, or“exoplanets”: planets that orbitstars besides our own sun. Thisnumber has reached well over 220over the past 17 years. Just a week or two ago, astronomers fromEurope were excited to announcethat they had found an Earth-likeplanet, Gliese 581c. The announce-ment was given at the EuropeanSouthern Observatory in Garching,Germany. The planet was said tohave been detected through themost sensitive spectrophotometerat an observatory’s main telescope

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THESTUYVESANTSTANDARD

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“Your School, Your World—Your News”

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EDITORIAL

THE SU: CONCERNSFOR CANDIDATES

With Student Union elections coming up, we would like to take thetime to suggest some issues for the candidates to address.1. Club-Pub grid restructuring- The Club-Pub grid, used by variousorganizations to hold after-school meetings, does not accuratelyhave which rooms are available. AIS Tutoring held on the 2

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floors are routinely not reflected on the grid. Additionally, manydoors are locked by teachers, forcing these organizations to scrambleto find a new meeting place. Better communication between the Stu-dent Union and the AIS tutoring program will enable all clubs toreceive the room they chose.2. Budget reform- Earlier this year, we reported on the inconsisten-cies in the Student Union budget process. While we were encour-aged by initial reports of the Student Union looking into the Consti-tution, nothing has come out of it. Budget meetings need to be uni-form so that no one gets a raw deal.3. Communication- Communication is currently the biggest prob-lem between the Student Union and the student body. It is difficult if not impossible to find out what’s going on in the school without per-sonal attendance at the meetings. We would like to see the SU news-letter re-established to give the student body a glimpse into what’sgoing on in the Student Union. Furthermore, minutes from all meet-ings should be posted on the student union website so they can beaccessed at all times. Letting people know what’s going on in theStudent Union will only strengthen interest in student government.The editorial board looks forward to hearing the candidates discussthese issues. We hope all students take an active role in listening tothese candidates and make a decision that best benefits the studentbody as a whole

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NEWS

THE STUYVESANTSTANDARD MAY 22, 2007—VOL. 6, No. 14

Letter from the Editors

Dear Readers,

This issue marks a major transition for The Stuyvesant Standard. Itis time to wish the best to our graduating editors as a new team is calledto carry the torch and usher in new heights.

The new Executive Leadership Team will fulfill The Standard’smission of bringing to its readers a diverse body of information as wellas being a method for open discourse. Throughout our time as editors,we desire to better serve this mission by making changes. We plan tostrengthen the key components of our paper by building on what wehave and adding new features. We will continue to be dedicated to ourreaders and wish to hear your feedback so we can better relate to you.Personally, I am filled with joy to be continuing as editor in chief.Throughout my time on The Standard I have seen the positive effectsnewspapers can have, either in their customary print form or the moremodern online form. Newspapers must continue to strive to be a sourcefor honest reporting of events and thought-provoking statements of opinions. Through my work, I want others to see the positive impactnewspapers have.The Standard has changed, and more importantly grown, over mytime at Stuyvesant. It will continue to do so under our new team andbeyond.

Regards,

Jennifer Schlesinger

Editor in Chief

eic@stuystandard.org

THE STANDARDNEWS

COLLEGE NIGHTcontinued from page 1

Yale Plans onIncreasing itsClass Size

by Richard Shyong,

staff writer

Yale, one of the mostprestigious Ivy League schools inthe country, is consideringexpanding its student body. For along time, Yale has consideredadding more residential collegesto its campus. Only recently,however, has Yale realized justhow important this is as aresponse to a growing number of applicants, among other reasons.

Like all other Ivy Leagueschools, Yale considers its repu-tation first. President Richard C.Levin plans to set up two com-mittees to assess the impact of adding two new residential col-leges. One committee would beresponsible for examining theimpact of increased enrollment onthe academic programs, while theother committee would be re-sponsible for examining the over-all effects on the student body.The question is: If Yale were toadd more colleges to its over-crowded campus, would the ef-fect on the school be positive?“We want to be certain that thequality of the Yale college ex-perience would be maintained orenhanced, and not diminished,"wrote Levin in a letter to YaleCollege’s dean.Recent developments have

YALE continues on page 5

MIT Officer ResignsAfter 28-Year Lie

by Neeta Malviya,

staff writer

After working for the Massa-chusetts Institute of Technologyfor almost 30 years, which in-cluded serving as the dean of ad-missions since 1998, Marilee Jonesresigned from her position, admit-ting to having fabricated her edu-cational credentials. Ironically, shehas written a book titled “LessStress, More Success,” in whichshe emphasizes the need for integ-rity and honesty.Jones first started working atMIT in 1979. She supposedly hadboth master’s and bachelor’s de-grees from Albany Medical Col-lege, Union College and Rensse-laer Polytechnic Institute. Accord-ing to officials atMIT, she did notpossess degreesfrom any of these institutionsor from anyother institutionfor that matter,and she did noteven possess anundergraduatedegree. Accord-ing to the regis-trar at RensselaerPolytechnic In-stitute, Jones had attended for oneyear, but had not earned a degree.According to the Chancellorof MIT, Phillip L. Clay, a collegedegree was most probably not re-quired to gain the secretarial jobthat Jones held when she first cameto MIT. Upon being appointedadmissions dean, she had been atthe institute for 19 years, so hercredentials were never thoroughlyreviewed.Jones’s resignation wasbrought about by a phone call froman anonymous person who ques-tioned the authenticity of Jones’scredentials. The phone call re-sulted in an investigation by theDean of Undergraduate Educationand a representative from the MITdepartment of Human Resources.Jones was made aware of the accu-sations brought against her in ameeting on April 20 and was askedto publicly resign. She admittedthat she had “misrepresented hercredentials” and publicized herresignation the next day. Jonesreleased a statement to the commu-nity at MIT saying she “did nothave the courage to correct herrésumé.” The announcement of theissue was not madeuntil MIT had timeto prepare state-ments. According toMIT’s website, thechancellor statedthat “it was veryimportant for us tosay exactly whathappened and whywe did it.” StuartSchmill, who is cur-rently the director of the EducationalCouncil, has takenthe place of Jones.In response to the news,sophomore Anisha Kunnel said,“The news certainly shocked mebecause of the fact that it was soeasy for her to get away with suchdishonesty at such a well-knownand prestigious institution. I don’tthink that it will alter my view of the school as a whole, but itcertainly lowers my view of theadministration.”

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THE STUYVESANTSTANDARDNEWS

An event like College Nightcould not be put together withoutthe help of the Parents’ Associa-tion, especially College Committeecochairs Florrid Levy, MichelleParker, Sherry Lin and AngelaWong. Many nights of hard work went into the preparations for theevent, and many phone calls andconnections had to be made. AsLevy stated, “There were twomonths of preparation, orderingitems, coordination with schoolpersonnel and organizing the smallarmy of volunteers that happen inthe months leading up to Thurs-day.” Representatives of around160 colleges were present at theevent, and as a result, many stu-dents could learn about collegesfrom around the states.The Parents’ Association puta lot of hard work into this eventand students were able to reap thebenefits of this event. Manystudents found this event helpfulin making decisions aboutcolleges they want to attend. Theinformation found at theseinformation sessions providedanswers to many questions thatstudents may have had. As juniorRaheel Anwar put it, “Overall, [itwas] a necessary experience forevery junior or even sophomore.”Not only did College Nightanswer students’ questions, it alsoopened up students’ eyes to dif-ferent colleges. Some collegesthat students may not have heardof set up shop in Stuyvesant’sclassrooms and distributed infor-mation about themselves. As aresult, students learned about col-leges that they never consideredbefore, expanding their options.While the event was a suc-cess, there was still some roomfor improvement. One such im-provement would have been to, asAnwar said, “Make it start earlierand end later so we can get moreof a chance to see all the collegeswe are interested in.” However,with the sheer number of collegespresent and the number of repre-sentatives for each college, theresult was a success.With many students attendingthe sessions, some of which werestanding room only, CollegeNight offered an excellent win-dow into college life and the ad-missions process. College Nightalso offered a glimpse into whatthe next two years hold for both juniors and sophomores.

Former Dean of Admissions Marilee Jones publicly announced her resignationafter it ws discovered that she misrepresented her educational information.

S o ur c e : h t t p : / / w w w- t e c h .mi t . e d u / V1 2 7 / N2 1 / gr a ph i c s / j on e s - 0 0 .h t ml

“I don't think that it will alter my view of the school as awhole, but it cer-tainly lowers myview of the admini-stration.

Anisha Kunnel

Sophomore

Yale is considering adding more resi-dential colleges to its campus after realizing how important it is to agrowing number of applicants.

S o ur c e : w w w . y a l e . e d u

MAY 22, 2007—VOL. 6, No. 14

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