Talk:Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

Trivia

As the saying goes, "don't get me started". I realized a few months ago that IMSA is now older than most, if not all, of its students. aruffo 07:09, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I am concerned that some of the early history trivia is off the mark. Is this from early class member memory (e.g. aruffo) or is this all being handled as written lore? Scott Swanson 15:12, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Course requirements

The section on course requirements is too verbose. The meaning of n-m class, for all numbers n and m, could have been explained in a sentence--why the elaborate and redundant table? -- SCZenz 15:50, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I cleaned this up a bunch. I did leave the table in, but ditched a lot of the obvious redundancies and added in a column on minutes-per-week, which actually makes the tabular format slightly helpful. /blahedo (t) 04:44, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Also the Class Schedule section has some style/formatting problems. -- SCZenz 15:51, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Fixed, and I ditched a lot of the unnecessary detail. Adding a little history makes this part make more sense. I'm removing the "needs work" tag; put it back if you think there's still a problem. /blahedo (t) 04:44, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

It looks good to me. Thanks! -- SCZenz 06:23, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Link war

There appears to be a link war going on in the See Also section: every few days, some high school gets added and another gets deleted. Most of them are just other Chicago-area high schools, which may be of high quality but otherwise bear no particular relationship to IMSA. I'm deleting all these, leaving (for the moment) only the links to similar schools in NYC and Virginia. If you have links of particular relevance, feel free to add them, but if they're just other high schools in Illinois, link them via that category. /blahedo (t) 20:18, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

However, albeit this occurrence, many of the students at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy still fear for their lives in light of this neverending war. Many attempts are founded by the President (Sir Evan Glazer) to try to minimize the fear bestowed into the student body, nonetheless, the terror still runs rampage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.195.42.142 (talk) 14:34, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Recent Vandalism

There appears to be a barrage of vandalism going on at the page. Keep a lookout :) — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 23:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I have been; thanks for your vigilance, Ilya. It's not just IMSA, either—high schools in general are targets, because of course they're the first page that high school students look at when they learn about Wikipedia, which they see as a large mostly-blank wall labelled "Write on me!" :) /blahedo (t) 00:53, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps...I just don't watch many other High school pages (about individual high schools) — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 02:57, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll watch out as much as I can, as I can actually talk to/yell at the students doing this and it seems to be happening yet again. User:PeaceTank (User Talk) 22:02, 18 February 2005 (UTC)

As a student from IMSA I am going to continue to edit this page. Keep thinking IMSA's so great. Have fun; I know I will. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.107.247.125 (talk) 20:28, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Graduation Rate

You say that the "graduation rate" (which should be retention rate, as most of these students who leave do still graduate) at IMSA is fairly low, with "incoming sophomore classes roughly 240, but graduating classes are only about 205." Compared to other schools as academically rigorous, this rate is fairly high, at 85% with the numbers you cited. Gglii 16:34, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

That makes me go "hmm" — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 02:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

The graduation rate is both above average and hard to compare, given that students lost to attrition are not replaced. What might be valuable is comparison with retention rates at other NCSSSMST member schools. Scott Swanson 15:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

One point of comparison: TAMS (A Texas version, also part of the NCSSSMST) has a graduation rate of ~65% over recent years. 129.120.244.101 (talk) 19:16, 1 March 2008 (UTC)Ittarius

Semi-Protection Sound Good?

Looks like some whackjobs are starting to vandalise this article, all off of anon ips and day-old accounts. Perhaps we should semi-protect this article. —Ilyanep (Editorials) 22:10, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• Perhaps. High school web pages seem to be a popular target for moronic vandalism. This one was a little more work than usual because of sockpuppets/meatpuppets. Eventually they'll either get blocked or bored. Jasmol 22:46, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Source on "suggested classes" ??

I edited out the part on IMSA taking suggestions for adding classes because, as far as i know without another source, IMSA isn't a one-dimensional environment. As much as it prides its self on math and sciences, it does amazing things in the education of the humanities. I think that sentence was misleading. --Auslander99 19:38, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps rewrite it, but I was talking to a student council member and he says that they don't allow addition of classes such as shop and cooking because it's specialized in a non-technical field. He says he has meeting minutes in doc format in his e-mail. Either way I'd keep the fact that they can suggest their classes. —Ilyanep (Talk) 03:16, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I was talking to Ilyanep the other day regarding this. Based on Academic Committee's (Student Council) findings through its academic survey, it gauged student body interest in a multitude of different classes. According to Dr. David Abler, IMSA’s director of curriculum and assessment, vocational classes are not possible. However, IMSA does offer a wide variety of classes not directly related to technical fields (such as photography and ceramics). Based on the results from the surveys, will continue to work toward having class offerings that will interest students. Psycam 02:30, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

A more balanced veiw?

This articleis not fully balanced and requires a critical voice to proveide fair coverage. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.175.158.179 (talk • contribs) .

Criticism for criticism's sake doesn't belong. It has to be notable criticism. That said, the article could use a little bit of balance, if the added paragraphs/sections are correctly worded. —Ilyanep (Talk) 01:45, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

TALENT

The TALENT program also encourages students to go out and make their own business project...

"Wikipedia is not the appropriate place to promote your book", and see other things Wikipedia is not. All the same, good luck with the book/project. Christopherlin 19:46, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

HEY i'm no whackjob i'm doing this for a history project and my brother goes to this school anyway nobody needed to make this the biggest source of information on this school website Imsa.edu

I think I'm missing what the general concern here is. TALENT does not have any books associated with it per se, nor any for-profit enterprises. It is a new program at IMSA that, though official, is having trouble gaining traction. Can those with concerns address them more precisely? Scott Swanson 13:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Notable alumni

Who is this person who keeps vandalizing the article? And how are they to be stopped? aruffo 19:45, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

If there isn't a set standard to determine who a notable alumni might be we ought to create one. Eryanv 04:42, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we should use the IMSA Advancement list of alumni used for their "Trailblazer Tales" as a starting point. There is a strong argument to be made for including any inaugural and future recipients of the Alumni Trailblazer Award and, potentially, the Alumni Distinguished Leadership Award. Scott Swanson 15:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I just reverted an edit removing Tay Zonday, with the justification that he is not notable and not an alumnus. Since we don't currently have a glut of alumni listed in that section, I'm inclined to keep him on the basis of notability as established on his Wikipedia page. I'm also using the broad definition of alumnus, usually used when institutions want donations, that includes everyone who ever attended, regardless of whether they graduated. I'm open to discussion on either point, if the anonymous editor would like to explain her/his decision to remove Tay. Avram (talk) 05:09, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I removed Tay Zonday, as he never graduated from IMSA and we have plenty of other alumni who are more notable. I also fixed the graduation years to match all the styles. Feel free to revert back if you disagree. Maripuri (talk) 01:03, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Criticism

Why isn't there a criticism section in this article? Is there any at all? --Ricera10 00:48, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

There is criticism, but it will take a lot of digging through newspaper articles and Illinois Congressional records to get precise quotes of specific concerns voiced over the history of the institution. There has been a notable lack of balanced criticism of the institution over time. Scott Swanson 15:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Day/Week Rotation

Although the existence of Wednesdays as I days is covered in the Student Inquiry and Research section, perhaps a more complete treatment of the current 5-day week rotation (A/B/I/C/D) and its historical evolution (A/B/C/D/E/EX, A/B/C/D/E/X, etc.) should be included. The article is fairly complete in its discussion of Mods, so perhaps this should be added in a further discussion of the academic calendar, perhaps in the Academics section near the Mod discussion? Scott Swanson 13:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Is there anywhere where we can get information on that? — Ilyanep (Talk) 01:17, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I would first check in the IMSA Archives, housed in the IRC. Scott Swanson 20:10, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Assessment as of March 2007

Hello all, and thank you for contributing to this school site. I'm part of the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Schools/Assessment team, and, as requested, I'm reviewing this page. I'm currently giving it a grade of Start on the Wikipedia 1.0 Assessment Scale and an importance of High on this importance scale.

My reasoning is as follows: While the writing and maintanance of this article is great, it just isn't well enough cited. There's also a lot of information that is trivial or would only be of local interest (non-encyclopedic content). With some cutting and research this could easily be improved Adam McCormick 05:57, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Adam, where would you suggest the cut (non-encyclopedic) content should go? Is there some area in the wikiverse where it is appropriate, or should that be offloaded to some kind of archives or alumni site such as iaa.org? Scott Swanson 17:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Pictures

I believe an IP address made changes to IMSA's website recently, citing many paraphrases of the previous edition and aesthetically unpleasing. However, to further this attempt at makign the page look etter, I propose the posting of campus pictures, to keep in line with this idea. Elenseel 04:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Competitive students

"Extremely competitive" is a rather fluffy and meaningless phrase. It could mean that "each year, X students apply for Y positions," or "the application process is rigorous" or... well, any number of things. So I chops it out. aruffo 09:53, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Aruffo, I believe that "extremely competitive" qualifies as a phrase suitable for the article, since it gives the general reader an idea of how difficult it is to get accepted (I would know, I am an incoming sophomore), and thus believe that removing that small, two-word phrase in pointless. Elenseel 19:08, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd disagree. "Extremely competitive" gives the general reader the notion that admission is difficult in some way, but gives no indication of how, nor how difficult, as the phrase does not explain by what measure "extremely" is being judged. And, importantly, we're discussing the inclusion of this phrase in the summary atop the entire article-- as such, we should consider whether the competition for slots a truly definitive aspect of the school. Is that a primary attribute which people think of, or should be made to think of, when IMSA is mentioned? Of course, as an incoming sophomore, that's bound to be one of the first things you think of now; but even half a year in, it would seem probable that that will no longer be the defining feature of your experience. I won't delete the statement again-- I'll leave that to others-- but I will take a whack at the grammar. aruffo 01:12, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Recent chop

Thanks for that removal. The article read far too much like a publicity campaign. aruffo 02:01, 18 June 2007 (UTC)