It was September, 1986, when Sona Nadenichek of Oak Lawn became a member of the charter class of students at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, but she can still vividly recall her feelings.
”It was a shock to see that everyone was smart,” she said. ”But I thought, Well, wait a minute. I`m not No. 1, but that`s okay. Just doing your best is what counts.”
That first class of sophomores for the three-year publicly supported residential school for the state`s top students found that living together around-the-clock created an atmosphere for deep relationships and extensive discussions about issues they maintained were rarely confronted in their home schools where everyone scattered after the class day ended.
Living together that first year, though, was more a case of roughing it. When 210 sophomores from all over Illinois descended in 1986 on the former north campus of Aurora West High School, vacated because of declining enrollment, there was no place to live. Accommodations were hastily created in the school.
”Some of the guys lived in a converted physics lab,” said Sharon Sundy of Mahomet. ”Some girls lived in home economics, others in art, and 36 girls, including me, lived in the music area. It was like a barracks with rows of bunk beds. It was like extended camp.”
Temporary closets were brought in, community bathrooms were in vogue, privacy was nil. But finally, after spring break in 1987, the academy`s pioneering students were able to move into five new dormitories.
At the same time, these 15- and 16-year-olds were trying to adjust to the reality that although they were the top students academically in their home high schools as freshmen, here they were just one of the crowd.
Consider, for example, that they came to the Aurora campus with a combined freshmen grade-point average of 3.91 on a 4-point scale. That`s nearly a straight A average for the entire class.
Commencement exercises for the surviving 168 seniors were held Saturday at Aurora`s Paramount Arts Centre after a year in which the Math and Science Academy won numerous academic awards.
Fifty-six seniors, one in three, are finalists for National Merit Scholarships, the nation`s most prestigious scholarship competition. It honors only the top one-half percent of high school seniors scoring highest on a qualifying exam.
Their average score on the American College Test used to help determine college admissions was 29.3. Last year, the top high school in the nation scored 27.4 (the ACT office declined to identify the school), so when the scores are reported next fall for the Class of 1989, the Math and Science Academy may well have led the nation.
Leon Lederman, director of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Batavia and the latest Nobel Prize winner in physics, conceived the idea for the school. He sold Gov. James Thompson and the General Assembly on the concept, and legislation was approved to open the school in 1986 with the state paying the cost for youngsters who would live on campus.
Though preparing teenagers with a strong background in math and science is the academy`s primary mission, Kelly Cahill of Aurora found an equally important benefit as a student. ”I learned my math and science, but what was most valuable for me is that I have learned about people,” she said.
”Everyone is here,” said Badrinath Rengarajan of South Barrington.
”This allows mobility in planning. At my old school, I couldn`t participate in many things because I was home. Here you can have a meeting at 9 p.m. and students will be there.”
Academy students can practice for sports teams after school, eat dinner, then attend a meeting such as the Psychology Club in the evening.
”Here if you have a project working with other students, all you have to do is say, `Meet in the dorm commons at 7 o`clock and we`ll work on it,`
” said Ann Ashenfelder of Wheaton. ”You don`t have to say, `Let`s see, my mom can drive me over to the library at 6 o`clock. Can you get one of your parents to drive you?` ”
The residential setting adds to the academy`s atmosphere in another way. Teachers are required to be available to students one day a week after school, either from 5:45 to 7:15 p.m. or from 7:45 to 9 p.m. If they need help with schoolwork, they can easily do so during this tutorial time.
”We`re not an 8-o`clock-to-3-o`clock faculty,” said Riva Kuhl, an English teacher. ”Many of us stay long hours. We`re here to be here for the students.”
The logistical benefits academy students enjoy because they live at school make possible the deepening of the mind and the sharing and debating of issues, like the day when Denise Chatfield of West Dundee was moved at a meeting of Student Pugwash. (The Math and Science Academy is the only high school in the nation to have a chapter of that group found on many college campuses to discuss links between technology and the rest of the world.)
There was a panel discussion considering abortion, and Chatfield couldn`t wait to get back to the dorms to engage other girls in a debate on the issue. Though every student comes to the academy with a sterling academic record and superior intellectual curiosity, they are still teenagers.
When they want to kiss and romance, they hold hands and walk to the pond at the south edge of campus overlooking a cornfield. Then they linger at the dormitory door next to the card reader, a little black box imbedded in the wall that reads electronic cards that open the door, a security measure to prevent unauthorized access.
It may appear the students are isolated on a campus at the northwest edge of Aurora. No way, they say.
Every two weeks, academy buses take them on mall trips to the Fox Valley Shopping Center. Or they can go to Aurora`s nearby West Plaza like other teenagers.
They can catch a bus at the corner to the train station in Aurora, then go to Chicago for a date to Water Tower Place, a stroll by Lake Michigan or a visit to a museum.
On campus, students have their Union with big screen television, table tennis and an indoor pool nearby. They have ”wing parties” in dormitory wings with snacks and dancing. Club Pseudo, a student talent show of skits, singing and dancing, meets monthly.
School authorities keep the reins fairly tight with curfews and dormitory counselors. During the week, it`s be on campus at 7:30 p.m., in the dorm by 10 p.m. and in the room by 11:30 p.m. On weekends, it`s 11:30 p.m. in the dorm and 1 a.m. in the room. There are checks and also occasional room inspections for neatness.
Students must sign out when they leave campus. They have to say where they`re going, whom they are going with, how they are getting there, note the time they left and estimate the time they will return.
The students say the curfews are necessary and helpful, especially the 10 o`clock one, which serves as a cue to settle down.
Though members of the Class of 1989 praise the residential living, some did admit to one shortcoming: homesickness.
The problem was so acute for perhaps five or six students in the charter class that they left and returned to their home high schools. Others left because of the academic pressure or because their parents moved out of state. Some, like Kathy Rink of Carbondale, are up to 300 miles from home but worked through their homesickness.
”It`s been hard because I`m really close to my family,” Rink said.
”There were times I called and said I want to come home. All three years I`m homesick. Phone calls are expensive and I`m not a great letter writer.”
When something bad happened, Rink reached for the phone. Bad, like ”when I completely bombed a test,” she said. ”Then I would call my dad at work, and he would tell me that life goes on, and it`s not that big a deal as long as I tried my best.”
