LETTER FROM PREVIOUS STUDENTS

Hey, guys. My name is Megha, and I was your amazing, wonderful, and extremely nice TA for the past five weeks.
Congratulations to you all for getting through Summer AEI, and I know you can’t wait to do this all over again in the fall. Anyways, I’m standing up here in front of you guys today, on the very last day of summer AEI, to share my MCVSD experience with all of you.
If you didn’t know already, I am currently studying in Biotechnology High School and I’m going to be a sophomore this year, which is kind of surprising considering the fact that I am only five feet tall. Two years ago, however, being a student at Biotech was only a dream and I never believed that it could possibly even become my reality. Getting to this goal of mine was a long and extremely tedious process, so I’m not going to lie to you and say that it was really easy, but in the end, it really paid off because now I’m able to tell people that I go to Biotech, and then just sit back and enjoy their shook faces. It’s extremely satisfying, by the way. We should probably start from the beginning. So, I first learned about the entire MCVSD and FRHSD schools sometime during 6th or 7th grade, and then I started freaking out because I honestly didn’t know if it was too late to start preparing and choosing what high school I wanted to apply for. And that was the most important part: choosing the high school I could possibly be a part of for the next four years. I always knew I wanted to sort of focus on the more science-y subjects, but I was never really interested in becoming a doctor, so that took Allied out of the list. I also did enjoy math, but I wasn’t exactly obsessed about it either, so that ruled out Hightech. So in the end, I chose what was exactly in the middle: Biotech! I attended one of the open houses and I immediately decided that this was the high school I wanted to get into. I don’t know why, but 7th grade me treated this entire thing as a life or death situation, and you know what, it might as well have been one because I worked extremely hard to accomplish this goal.
You see, I’m the type of person who will only rest once I’ve completed a task I’ve set out to do, even though I’m a bit on the lazy side, so as one might expect, there were a lot of crazy math problems, analogies, and hard AEI tests to get through. Yeah, most of you probably already know this, but I also attended AEI like you guys two years ago. I attended both Summer and Fall AEI and that was probably the only reason why I even came close to getting into Biotech because let’s just say I wasn’t the smartest person back when I was your age. I mean, sure I could get good grades on school tests that mainly focused on one topic at a time, but these were a completely different thing. I actually didn’t do terrible on the math and reading sections, surprisingly, but where I really failed at least 99.9% of the time was the Verbal section. Oh yeah, there were times when I got 60s and 70s on the Verbal section and I just started freaking out since I was positive I wasn’t going to pass the MCVSD test just because of the Verbal section. In the end, however, I was extremely lucky because most of the words on the test turned out to be words I had learned during the school year, and because I tried to actually pay attention in class, I knew most of the words. So message of the day: pay attention in class, kids. You never know when all that information might actually come in handy. To really prepare though, I mainly focused on the tests that we got for homework for fall AEI. I kept revising them over and over again, also looking back on the tests from the summer. I also tried to look over all the math lessons that we got not only from school, but also from AEI. And in the end, after endless hours at AEI, redoing math problems, revising vocab words, and completing a ton of practice tests, I took the MCVSD test and guess what, I got in. That really took me by surprise because when I received the email and saw that I was accepted, I just stared at the screen for five minutes, not saying a word. But that silence was soon replaced by me just screaming like a dying bird. That definitely helped my self esteem a lot. But you know, me getting accepted into Biotech turned out to be one of the best things ever because now I’m able to learn a lot of cool science-y things, a lot of extremely confusing math stuff, and be a part of a small but amazing community of people who all share similar interests.
You see, I guess what I’m really trying to say is that you can definitely get into any of these highschools by really, really trying your best, studying as hard as you possibly can, and honestly, just believing in yourself. You guys are all extremely smart, young human beings and I strongly believe that each one of you can get into the highschool of your dreams if you try your best.