Literary magazine released
The Pulp staff recently announced the release of their literary magazine from the 2018-2019 school year, Hodgepodge. It is available for purchase for $5 in room 253. It features student artwork, photography, poetry and prose. Submissions for this year’s magazine can be sent to [email protected]. Meetings are in room 253 after school on Wednesdays, beginning Sept. 25. While this edition came out relatively late, the staff has high hopes to be ahead of the game this year. “For this year, my primary goals are to give other editors and staff members a larger role in creating the magazine, to speed up the design process so that we receive the published magazine by the end of May, and to increase club membership,”editor-in-cheif senior Alexis Bentz.
Students recognized for academic excellence by College Board
MCPS has 138 semifinalists in the 2020 National Merit Scholarship competition, with seven coming from this school. They are seniors Amy Chai, Stephanie Geng, Joanne Liu, Zain Majumder, Michelle Shen, Joy Shi and Mollika Singh. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) recognizes students based on the PSAT/NMSQT Selection Index scores, calculated by doubling the sum of the reading, writing and language, and math scores. About 50,000 students are recognized each year, roughly 34,000 as Commended Students and 16,000 as Semifinalists. Semifinalists submit further materials to be considered as a Finalist and National Merit Scholarship Awards of $2,500. Companies and universities also have scholarships for students recognized by NMSC.
Newspaper staff awarded by Columbia Scholastic Press Association
The 2018-2019 Common Sense staff was recently awarded a gold medal by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. According to CSPA’s website, “The Critique contains a written set of standards developed by the Association to itemize the best practices for student media. The adviser-judge reads the print or online publication and analyzes its strengths and weakness as described by the Critique. The judge writes out comments and makes constructive suggestions for building on current strengths and correcting deficiencies noted in the Critique.”
The process on the staff’s side for receiving the medalist critique involves putting the paper’s best foot forward. “We submitted our best issues, ones that were consistently good throughout. A lot of the time we had issues that had some really fantastic parts, but those were offset by problems in other areas,” last year’s co-editor-in-chief, John Riker (‘19), said.
