Family Welcome Lunch

BEAM 2016 is nearly here!  As the first step toward the summer, we invite 7th graders and their families to come, eat pizza, and meet BEAM alumni and parents. 

First, faculty from the summer described what they planned to teach:

Then, students, in 8th grade and in high school, talked about their experiences in BEAM and after.  Here are some highlights:

• Jennora, who attended in 2015, thanked BEAM for support in applying to high school and summer programs.  This summer, she will be attending GOALS for Girls at the Intrepid Museum.  In the fall, she will be heading to Bard High School Early College. 
• Mona, who attended in 2013, announced that she is spending her summer interning at Morgan Stanley working with their technology team.  She credited BEAM with giving her the courage to introduce herself to an Assistant Principal at the high school fair, which lead her to the Academy for Software Engineering.
• Rebecca, who attended in 2015, described her favorite course last summer, Euclidean Geometry, where they learned how to construct two circles in such a way that they formed a triangle, and they were able to prove with certainty that the shape was equilateral. 
• Zavier, who attended in 2011, is graduating high school and heading to SUNY Albany in the fall.  Since BEAM, he has been focused on computer science, and now teaches technology at a maker space. He thanked BEAM for acting as his college guidance counselor, helping with the SAT, his FAFSA, understanding financial aid, and more.

It was so wonderful to see all the 7th graders and imagine where they will be in 5 years!

Navigating the NYC High School Maze

BEAM is proud to announce a first: our first ever quarterly newsletter!  In this Winter 2016 issue, learn about how we help students navigate high school admissions, our plans for summer 2016, and available jobs at BEAM. 

Read the full newsletter online and sign up at the bottom of our page to receive future newsletters. 

High School Placements, a first draft

This month, BEAM students found out where they will be attending high school.  We are pleased to announce that, so far, 35% of our 8th graders will be attending highly selective high schools and 51% will be attending selective high schools.  We say "so far" because a number of students, due to extenuating circumstances and the logistics of the process, are still awaiting a high school placement and we hope those numbers will go up as students are settled.

BEAM will have students attending:

Bard High School Early College (10)
Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics (6)
Brooklyn Technical High School (5)
The Beacon School (4)
NEST+m (3)
Academy for Software Engineering (3)
Bronx High School for Science (2)
University Heights High School (2)
High School of Math, Science, and Engineering at City College
LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts
High School for Dual Language and Asian Studies
Manhattan Village Academy
Pace High School
Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics
Hostos-Lincoln Academy of Science

Congratulations are also in order to three 9th graders who are transferring to even stronger high schools.  In the fall, Amanda will be attending Brooklyn Tech, Eric will be attending Manhattan Center, and Mayra will be attending University Heights. 

We are so proud of them all!

MATHCOUNTS 2016

February was MATHCOUNTS month all over the country.  BEAM sponsored teams at interested partner schools, making sure that students could participate without worrying about the cost of sending a team.  In all, we paid for teams to attend the competitions in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. 

We want to draw particular attention to 8th grader Kaya Moore who received an honorable mention at the Bronx MATHCOUNTS tournament.  Last week, Kaya found out that he will be attending the Bronx High School of Science next year.  Nice work, Kaya!

Matching Campaign Success

BEAM is pleased to announce that we have met our Matching Campaign goal! With all the online donations and checks in the mail, we can officially announce that we made the goal. Our Board increased their donations $175,000 to match $175,000 in new or increased contributions. 

Thanks to all supporters, for enabling us to provide another year of free programs to students in NYC.

AMC 8 Results

As you may recall, students took the AMC 8 contest back in November, and we wanted to report on how they did!

The AMC 8 is a 25 question contest, and it's quite challenging.  This year, 149,277 students nationwide took the contest.  The median (middle) student scored 8 -- less than a third of the questions answered correctly!  To score in the top 25% percentile, students had to score at least 11.  Only 90 students across the world got a perfect score. 

Of the 12 students who took the contest, 9 scored above 8 questions correct, putting them above the nationwide average.  Good work, everyone!  We are particularly impressed by Ahmed, whose score of 13 puts him the top quartile nationwide. BEAM is sure this a sign of future success yet to come.  

An Evening of Dinner and Board Games

Every winter, BEAM brings together program supporters and students for an evening of dinner and board games.  An elegant board games party?  Yes, you heard that right!

This winter, we saw folks playing Swish, chess, Ricochet Robots, Blokus, Apples to Apples, and Set. 

Over games and dinner, the adults got to hear just what it was like for students to participate in BEAM. After dinner, a panel of students answered questions from the audience about their experiences at BEAM, in high school, at other programs, and their goals for the future. 

It was a lovely event.  We hope you can join us next year!

Winter Party

With all of our important academic events, it's great to also make time for BEAM students to come together and just hang out!  Every December and June, BEAM hosts a party for students in grades 8-12 to get together with their friends, eat, and play games. 

It was wonderful to see old friends and new get together!  Enjoy some photos of students and staff having a great time together:

Saturday Office Hours

Every Thursday and one weekend a month, BEAM hosts "Office Hours".  Just as in college, students can bring anything they're working on and receive help or advice from staff and volunteers. 

Here's a list of things we worked on this weekend at Office Hours:

• Ayinde helped students prepare to take the SCAT next weekend, the first step to attending summer programs at the Center for Talented Youth (CTY)
• Amy helped Jahleel with Algebra 1
• Lynn helped Veronica with 8th grade math homework
• Ryan helped DeVaune with Geometry
• Dan led the monthly Math Team meeting, with the 8th graders preparing for MATHCOUNTS

Students also had time to take a break and eat a snack with friends. 

By the time BEAM students get to college, they will be in the habit of seeking out help as needed!

Trivia Night with Supporters, Students, and Staff

On Tuesday, December 1, BEAM supporters, students, and staff joined together for a night of math trivia, fancy pizza, and fun, supporting BEAM's 2016 program.  

After a dinner of pizza, pasta, salad, and meatballs, guests joined teams (each a mix of adults and students) to answer questions about some of BEAM's favorite topics: math, of course, but also sports, board games, pop music, and more!  

After four rounds of trivia, the top three teams were invited to the Countdown Round. 

With two correct answers provided by Rashik, (Mercury and Venus don't have moons; Colorado is one of two states with perfectly rectangular borders), the winning team was "Yay, Winners!"  It turns out that was a great choice of team name. 

Thanks to everyone for making the event such a great night, including our trivia hosts, Big Quiz Thing, and the venue, Gran Morsi. We will be back next year for another wonderful night; if you missed it this time, join our mailing list to hear about the next event!