
The Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, a public live-in high school - Elof
http://www.wired.com/2013/05/hogwarts-for-hackers/
======
ksml
Wow, my high school is on HN!

IMSA was an amazing place. There are so many smart people with so much
motivation and it feels like anything is possible there. There is a dark side,
though, not often mentioned publicly. Mental health issues are quite common,
as could be expected when you put 14-18 year olds in a highly stressful, high-
pressure environment, and people generally aren't very physically healthy,
either (4.5 hours of sleep a night is common). I had some of my best times and
worst times at IMSA.

~~~
patio11
IMSA is indeed a great school. (I went to high school at another well-regarded
school in Illinois, and saw quite a bit of IMSA folks deep into the statewide
competitions for math team, quiz bowl, debate, etc etc.) I avoided going to it
for exactly the reason you mentioned, with the worry that that would be
exacerbated by social isolation caused by being away from my family.

I imagine many folks find it a wonderful place to be.

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the7nd
The reason you see so many entrepreneurs come out of IMSA is that the students
realize they can learn anything. You see the guy across from you ace a test or
finish an assignment faster than you thought was possible. You know you are as
good as your peers so you push yourself to reach that level.

Once you accomplish everything the school gives you, you want more. You think
of new ideas and no longer constrain yourself to what is given to you. This is
just one dynamic that happens here. A lot happens when you tell the most
driven and brightest to "advance the human condition".

~~~
jrock08
This is something that I'm uniquely qualified to comment on.

I am an IMSA alum who was by and large, a below average IMSA student during my
first two years. However, I learned a lot just by being exposed to my very
smart classmates. Eventually, in my senior year I matured and started to work
harder and got good grades. Had I stayed at my original high school I would
have skated through at the top of my classes without much adversity. Then,
based on the average college dropout rate of students from my original high
school, I would have faced adversity in college and not know what to do. IMSA
is a big part of why I am where I am today.

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in_cahoots
IMSA sounds like a great school, and I've always been a bit jealous of the
alumnus I've met from there. But I don't know how much we can learn from this
model. If you take 650 of the brightest and most motivated students and put
them in one place, you're going to get incredible results regardless of the
teaching methods. The real challenge is achieiving comparable gains with
average or below-average students.

~~~
thrownaway2424
That's an interesting question. Is it even worth the effort to try to achieve
academic gains in below-average students? What's the typical improvement we
should expect there? For that matter, do special schools like IMSA achieve any
gains in their students, or do they merely select and observe them?

~~~
acjohnson55
I'd flip that question around: can we afford not to?

The consequences of a failing education system are underemployment,
unemployment, antisocial behavior, civil unrest, and criminal activity. Even
worse, the impact is felt across generations, as children born to parents the
system has failed get less enrichment at home than children born to well-
educated parents. Case in point, the US's massive educational achievement gap
and world-leading incarceration rate.

The word meritocracy was coined [1] to describe a system where resources are
lavished on those who have proven their worth. Like the originator of the
term, I severely doubt our ability to actually measure
intellect/merit/achievement decoupled from unearned advantage and luck.

I'd argue that we should be doing a lot less for the gifted. They'll turn out
fine with guidance and resources. If we actually invested the time and
resources into the most at risk, we might actually be able to get them up to
speed, rather than socially promoting them and kicking them from school to
school. Furthermore, I'd posit that an education should be considered a human
right, and a bar by which we measure our achievement as a country.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy)

~~~
nmrm2
_> I'd argue that we should be doing a lot less for the gifted. They'll turn
out fine with guidance and resources._

There is a common perception that gifted students are "like other students,
but smarter and better at school stuff".

This is a flawed perception; it's not at all uncommon for gifted students to
do very poorly in school, and not just for social reasons.

Instead of thinking of "gifted" as "better", you should think of gifted as
"special".

(FWIW, I agree with your criticism of your parent post and upvoted you --
gifted students aren't more important than any other student.)

~~~
acjohnson55
I 100% agree with you. I taught high school in Baltimore's public schools.
Some of my brightest kids were some of my worst performing, most challenging
students to deal with. I honestly believe some of them underperformed because
they could perceive what a sham the system was.

But in my original comment, I was using "gifted" in the more traditional sense
of "high performing" or "high testing", which doesn't necessarily correspond
with brilliance. A big criticism I have of the gifted track is that it misses
out on a lot of students who are capable of doing accelerated work.

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thrownaway2424
Hey look, a rare opportunity to complain about my home state on HN on two
consecutive days! There is a similar school in Oklahoma called the Oklahoma
School of Science and Mathematics. The legislature founded the school in 1990
and has been systematically trying to defund it ever since[1].

IMSA and OSSM were founded around the same time, are of similar size, history,
and philosophy. They are also both members of amazingly-named National
Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and
Technology. If you're looking for a school like this in your area, you should
start there[2].

1: [http://www.reddirtreport.com/red-dirt-news/ossm-only-
adequat...](http://www.reddirtreport.com/red-dirt-news/ossm-only-adequately-
funded-high-school-oklahoma)

2:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Consortium_for_Specia...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Consortium_for_Specialized_Secondary_Schools_of_Mathematics,_Science_and_Technology)

~~~
gypsy_heretic
There's also an Alabama School of Math and Science (asms.net). It's a
veritable sanctuary in Alabama for intellectuals.

~~~
adenverd
Arkansas has the same: Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts
(asmsa.org).

------
subsaboteur
This is an old article and I feel like it fails to shine light on some of the
issues with this system. As a recent graduate of the Illinois Mathematics and
Science Academy I have seen that in recent years, much of the innovative sprit
and lust for learning has shrunk. With a model like IMSA's there tends to be
an ever increasing amount of bureaucracy. I have heard teachers mention grade
quota’s, dealt with an over zealous marketing team who clamped down on student
creativity, and the general Silicon Valley “fluff“ that I know plenty of us
disliked. However, that being said, the people I met there were awesome. The
rigor the school applied on us made us better in the long run, even if it did
injure some of our GPA’s. Overall, you go to IMSA for the environment and for
the like minded audience over the strict and stubborn academics.

Also as proof I went there: Chickadee dee dee

------
bfung
Going to troll a little. At my high school, IMSA was known as just as IA:

"The Math Team at Naperville North ...and won ten consecutive Math Team state
championships (1998–2007). ... The WYSE team won the state championship from
1999 to 2005, 2007 to 2009, 2012, and 2013."[1]

=P

IMSA and other high schools in the area were pretty close, as you'd apply to
IMSA after doing a year at the other high schools in the area.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naperville_North_High_School#A...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naperville_North_High_School#Activities)

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acjohnson55
Great school! I grew up about a 20 minute drive from there, and know a number
of alums, including one of my best friends. They tend to be very ambitious,
independent, and resourceful people. It's probably not a scalable model,
without retooling the pipeline that feeds high school. Most American students
aren't trained for the level of independence the school offers at a relatively
young age. Heck, most American students aren't prepared for that level of
independence by the time they hit university age.

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aappleby
See also "Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science" :)

~~~
adenverd
These schools are all over the place! I graduated from the Arkansas School for
Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts. Math and science schools are truly
fantastic places for advanced high school students to get a quality education.

~~~
runevault
I have to admit, I never expected to see my old HS come up on HN for some
reason (though I'm still not used to the and the Arts, I went when it was
still just the Arkansas School for Mathematics and Sciences.

Ah, memories.

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joe5150
By "Hogwarts" they mean "a school"?

~~~
mixedmath
I suppose they mean "a boarding school."

Actually, they repeatedly call it a "live-in school." Is there a difference
between a live-in school and a boarding school?

~~~
qiqing
Most IMSA kids I knew went home to their parents on the weekends, every
weekend.

Most boarding school kids I knew only went 'home' for summer, winter holidays,
spring break, etc.

~~~
ksml
This certainly isn't universal. I graduated from IMSA and many (likely the
majority of) kids stayed on most weekends, including myself

~~~
ilyanep
Are you older than me? I was class of '09 and already the kids who lived
closer by went home on a fair number of weekends. I've heard the trend has
gotten even more pronounced over time.

