When it comes to sharing what鈥檚 so unique and special about Academy, our students tell it best! This fall, we asked students to share what they like about their class, what can make it even better, and what classes they鈥檇 like to see offered this spring. We would like to say thank you to our students for their feedback, and share these highlights from two questions on our survey:

“My Favorite Activity/Topic So Far Was…”

• Subatomic particles.
• Building a beaver dam!
• The virtual microscope.
• Designing adaptive Xbox controllers.
• Building a catapult.
• Making story boards.
• Exploring and talking about philosophical arguments.
• Learning the elements and the rings of bonds.
• Talking about each other’s stories and giving feedback.
• Castles.
• Rodents.
• Silly poems.
• North America.
• South America.
• The periodic table song.
• Structures and support design.
• Siege engines.
• All of them!

“Because of this class, I am able to…”

• Do fun experiments.
• Build cool stuff.
• Think laterally better.
• Tell better stories.
• Talk to other kids.
• Identify stars.
• Make chemical equations.
• Write and enjoy poems.
• Use Tinkercad to create my own designs.
• Have a digital microscope and make observations.
• Learn about the world and its cool features.
• Learn about different ways to think about life.
• Think in a new way about how to make things for people with disabilities.
• Tell my parents facts they don鈥檛 know.
• Tell my friends all this cool info.
• Have fun while learning.

Students also shared feedback on what makes Academy different from other classes they take. As one student wrote, 鈥淚鈥檓 actually learning more about 3d printing, just like how in another (Academy) class I was actually learning about how rockets and engines work.鈥� As these pictures of student work show, there鈥檚 no better way to learn than by doing!

NOW ACCEPTING NEW AND RETURNING STUDENT APPLICATIONS

FOR SPRING 2021!

Session Dates: January 25 鈥� April 26, 2021 (no classes April 5-10)
Early Bird Application Deadline: December 18, 2020
Application Deadline: January 4, 2021[button size=”big_large” icon=”” target=”_self” hover_type=”default” font_weight=”700″ text_align=”center” text=”Apply Now” link=”https://ieastaging2.wpengine.com/programs/iea-academy/how-to-apply/” color=”#ffffff” hover_color=”#aa230d” background_color=”#aa230d” hover_background_color=”#ffffff” border_radius=”4″ margin=”0px 0px 0px 0px”]

Lisa is the mother of 3 gifted children and lives outside of San Francisco.

It鈥檚 the only fun part of the college application process: the college trip. It鈥檚 the chance for your child to dream before the harsh realities of test scores, class rank and GPAs hit. Best of all, parents are active participants. We get to be accomplices to the dream worlds our children are imagining.

Three years ago, I eagerly anticipated bonding with my oldest son on our whirlwind tour of 6 colleges in the east and one in the Midwest. I memorialized the trip with pictures of him scraping the snow off the windshield of our rented car, waking up with bed head and sampling cannoli in Boston. He was not amused. The defining moment of our trip happened during dinner midway into the week.

鈥淚 haven鈥檛 seen anyone in so long,鈥� he said.

I not only wasn鈥檛 bonding with him, I wasn鈥檛 even someone.

I returned from the trip with a more realistic understanding of my place in his world. I could be the travel agent, chauffeur and advisor, but I did not have a place in his dreams. The trip was his opportunity to imagine a life without me. He had already gotten a head start imagining that world.

I tried to apply the lessons I learned from my oldest son to my middle son鈥檚 college trip. We would see one school a day (with the exception of a quick trip to New York City) and travel solely by public transportation. The pace and mode of transportation would reduce my stress and allow each of us to immerse ourselves in the experience of looking for a college 鈥� separately. For my son, that meant plugging himself into the sounds of Ingrid Michelson and Idina Menzel. For me, it was flipping the pages of The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College.

My son let me set the itinerary. We could only visit 6 or 7 schools, so I made the decision to tour schools of varying size located in suburban, urban and big city locations. This would allow me to gauge his interest in particular types of schools. One of the things they had in common is that they all had strong programs in his areas of interest: International Relations, Politics, Philosophy, Economics, Public Policy and Government. The other thing they had in common is that they are all spectacularly hard to get into. That last part wasn鈥檛 one of my criteria; it just turned out that way. Or, more accurately, I didn鈥檛 make an effort to balance safety, target and reach schools.

I was breaking the first rule of the college application process: manage your child鈥檚 expectations.

I wasn鈥檛 trying to communicate an unreasonably high level of expectations to my son, although it could certainly be seen that way. I was curious. Some group of researchers decided that these were the best schools in the country and lots of students appeared to agree with this conclusion. How else do you get such low acceptance rates? Besides, isn鈥檛 this an area where a gifted kid can dream big? After my husband and I had spent years finding outlets for his passions, was this really the time to tell our son that the admission odds are set against him and he should be more realistic? Without visiting these schools, they would just be names, spoken with reverence by his friends and their parents. He would not know if the fuss was justified until he experienced these mythical institutions, however superficially.

Luckily, the idea of attending an Ivy League college had already lost some of its luster by the time we left for the East Coast. My son had fallen in love two weeks earlier. The object of his affection is a liberal arts college in Southern California. The town, the campus, the classes and the flip flop wearing student body spoke to him. He now had the gold standard against which all other schools would be compared.

If my son felt pressured by my itinerary, he didn鈥檛 complain. In fact, he said that he would have been disappointed had I not taken him to these highly selective schools. He was not ready to inventory his shortcomings. He still wanted the chance to dream. So, bring it on Harvard. Let鈥檚 see if the tingly excitement brought on by an Ivy League name can compare to the warmth generated by the Southern California sun.

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Every gifted person has a unique story. The following story is part of a series of posts depicting the many faces of gifted by highlighting gifted children and adults we have found through 优蜜视频 programs. The program 鈥� mentioned in this story 鈥� awards highly gifted applicants with a four-year scholarship to a high school that fits their individual, intellectual and personal needs.

Manning Ding
2003 CDB Scholar
Business Analyst, McKinsey and Company, Minneapolis

Before Manning Ding graduated with highest honors from Harvard in 2012, and before she worked in Kampala, Uganda, and Beijing, China, she was a junior high school student in Iowa who was awarded the Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship. The merit-based scholarship let her attend any high school of her choice, and she chose Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.

鈥淚t was Exeter鈥檚 鈥楬arkness鈥� method that did it for me. At Exeter, every class is conducted in discussion format, with 12 students and a teacher sitting around an oval table trading questions for answers on subjects from author Jhumpa Lahiri鈥檚 short stories to how to prove the Pythagorean Theorem.

鈥淚 remember visiting Exeter in 8th grade and sitting in on an Existentialism course. I think I said one thing the entire time, but it was still exhilarating to listen in on the richness of dialogue across the Harkness Table by 14- and 15-year-olds,鈥� Manning explained.

In addition to covering the cost of tuition for four years of high school, the Institute for Educational Advancement invites the CDB Scholars to an annual weekend gathering, called the , that includes discussions on a global and personal scale.

鈥淢y favorite memory was returning as an alumna to the Bradley Seminar with four other Scholars in my class and realizing that we were closer than ever before, sharing college updates and CDB recollections and endless laughter. Seeing Bonnie [Bonnie Raskin, CDB Program Coordinator] and Betsy [Elizabeth Jones, 优蜜视频 President] and the younger classes of Scholars at the Seminar really cemented for me the realization that being a CDB Scholar has been a part of who I am since the age of 13, and it鈥檒l always be a part of who I am. We, the Scholars, may grow up, but we won鈥檛 grow apart from the CDB community.鈥�

Manning graduated Harvard with a degree in Economics, but didn鈥檛 start off majoring in Econ. 鈥淚 actually went into Harvard thinking I would be a China correspondent at some international news agency. During my first two years in college, I vacillated between Economics (which addressed some of the world鈥檚 toughest development questions in an intellectually honest way) and Philosophy (for its rigor of thinking).

鈥淥f course, the great thing about Harvard is the breadth and depth of opportunities available. So while I was able to delve into fascinating topics in Economics (by taking grad-level courses and working as a research assistant for professors), I was also able to try out a range of potential careers through extracurricular activities (I reported news for The Crimson and headed Harvard Yearbook Publication), internships (at various investment banks and the Beijing bureau of Thomson Reuters) and fellowships and research opportunities (which funded my summers in China, Tanzania, and Uganda).鈥�

Prior to graduation, Manning applied for, and received a Fulbright Award. The Fulbright Award is sponsored by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, and is known as America’s flagship international exchange program. It is a competitive, merit-based grant that facilitates the exchange of students, scholars, and teachers between the United States and over 155 countries worldwide.

鈥淚 applied for the Fulbright during senior year of college and was fortunate to receive the grant, allowing me to spend 10 months after graduation researching Chinese social enterprises and economic development. The Fulbright is very flexible – while they provide you with a support network of local researchers and resources, I had complete ownership of my project and was solely responsible for driving the project forward. It has definitely been a challenging but rewarding opportunity both in terms of cultural exchange and career development.鈥�

Manning explained more about the China Fulbright application process, saying, 鈥淭he applicants determine the location and scope of the research project and are responsible for securing a host academic institution and a local advisor. They then submit a project proposal explaining the motivation behind their project and the methods by which they intend to carry out the project.

鈥淎s part of my research, I interviewed Beijing- and Shanghai-based social entrepreneurs, worked with both a foreign-run and a government-backed social enterprise incubator, organized dinners for female social entrepreneurs in Beijing, helped professors at some of China鈥檚 top universities put together a white paper (one of the first of its kind) outlining the state of Chinese social enterprises, and spent four months at a social enterprise aiming to revolutionize Chinese rural education with digital tablets.鈥�

I asked Manning for the definition of a 鈥渟ocial enterprise.鈥� She explained, 鈥淪ocial enterprises are an exciting new model that is currently receiving increasing attention in China (and across the world) for its ability to solve social and environmental issues that the government and the market are not necessarily in a position to address. The legal and academic definition of 鈥榮ocial enterprise鈥� is still being heatedly debated, particularly in China. There are, however, a couple of commonly accepted definitions of social enterprises.

鈥淪ocial enterprises are essentially businesses whose primary purpose is to do social good. They鈥檙e different from non-profit NGOs in that social enterprises are financially self-sustaining and do not rely primarily on donations. They鈥檙e different from businesses (even socially responsible businesses) in their impact-first (versus finance-first) approach.鈥�

This summer, Manning began work as a Business Analyst at global management consulting firm McKinsey and Company in Minneapolis. Since she鈥檚 a recent college grad, I asked her for any advice to incoming college freshman. I think her words of wisdom are perfect for any student or adult in a new situation:

鈥淏e present. Half of achieving anything in college is simply showing up. Show up to lectures, extracurriculars, events. Show up on time, and stay the whole time. Put away your cell phones and laptops and tablets and actually engage that professor or speaker or new acquaintance — ask questions, remember names, take notes. You鈥檒l be amazed at how much you鈥檒l learn and grow if you are simply fully present. And of course, take risks, have adventures, try not to pull too many all-nighters and always remember to laugh.鈥�

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