Tips for Finding the Right College

Nicholas Damarodis

Editor-in-chief

Right now  can be a difficult time of year for seniors. Trying to manage school work, after school activities, and other commitments adds up fast, so adding the college selection process onto everything else can seem daunting. Rather than stressing over finding the right school, use these tips to ease your navigation:

1. Location, Location, Location: Figure out how far you want to go for school, and try to set a proximity from your house when looking at schools. Don’t just think of states or wide areas, but see how many hours (by plane, car, or whatever transportation you will use) it will take to get to your destination. Having a rough idea of how far you will go will help slim your choices down quickly.
2. Check to see if the school offers your major: Even better, use search engines and college finders online to only see schools that offer the majors you want. You would be surprised how many schools do not offer certain majors. Also, some schools are better known for certain majors over others.
3. ALWAYS check the dorms: If you are particular about a certain type of living style, check to see what type of living options the school offers. Larger schools tend to have a wide variety of living arrangements, but smaller schools may have fewer options. Also, make sure you are looking at freshmen dorms. Many schools love to profile their renovated and newly built dorms, but those are usually for upperclassmen.
4. Look at the size of the school: Schools can be small, with only a few hundred students, to as large as tens of thousands of students. Seriously consider how small or large a place you feel comfortable living in. It may sound great to leave your small town for a large college, but you may feel left out. Conversely, going to a smaller school may mean fewer options for sports, academics, and other activities.
5. Financial aid: The sooner you learn about financial aid, the better. Every school has different types of aid programs and scholarships. Some expensive Ivy League and liberal arts programs may look impossible to afford, but many have great scholarship programs. This is an important piece of the college equation to keep in mind, but know that most schools will not present a financial package to you until you have been accepted.
6. Once you find your top places, visit them: Visiting the school is the best way to discover the true environment of it. Try to think of your most important questions before you get there, and don’t be afraid to ask them if the guide does not go over something you wanted to hear about. Take a few minutes to walk around by yourself too. See if you are comfortable at the school and can picture yourself being a part of it.

Although it may seem impossible to get through all these steps, many of them come down to simple preference. There is no right or wrong in this process. It is all up to you and what you want. Make sure to reach out to friends, families, and teachers if you need some more ideas, but know that it is your path and your decisions. Good luck finding the right place for you!

Ferrari, A Small Company With Big Achievements

Ferrari is an Italian car company that is known for being one of the most popular car companies with the best-looking cars ever. Ferrari was founded in 1929. Enzo Ferrari, an Italian motor racing driver and entrepreneur was the founder of the prize company. The first Ferrari was the 1947 125 sport. In 1951, Ferrari held their first World Championship racing event in Monaco. The race was won by Froilán González, a well known Argentinian Formula One racer who raced from 1950-1960.

Ferrari’s company has over 2,695 employees working. In 2012, Ferrari had a fantastic year. The company arguably had their best year as they made 2.433 billion euros (3.13857 billion US dollars) in revenue, which is a great amount for the number of cars they made. They also had record sales in the US and ended up selling 2,058 cars there in that year. 90% of Ferrari is owned by Fiat, an Italian automotive company that also owns Maserati, Alfa Romeo, and Chrysler.

Ferrari has manufactured good-looking, fast, reliable cars for over sixty-five years now. As of now, Ferrari has produced almost 200 models of cars. The 1962 250 GTO Ferrari (picture above) is the most expensive car ever sold. It was sold in excess of approximately $53 million. The 360 model has had the most sales out of all Ferrari models. Ferrari’s newest cars include the California T, the 458 Italia, the FF, the 458 Spider, the F12 Berlinetta, the 458 Speciale, and La Ferrari (picture on the left), which is the most recent model. The California T is a grand touring sports car that was unveiled at the 2008 Paris Motor Show. The 458 Italia was unveiled at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show, as was the 458 Spider and the 458 Speciale. The FF was presented in 2011 at the Geneva Motor Show. The F12 Berlinetta was presented at the 2012 Geneva Motor show. La Ferrari was unveiled at the 2013 Geneva Auto Show. Only 499 of the most recent Ferrari (La Ferrari) were built, and they all were sold with a price tag of 1.4 million dollars.

Ferrari has been making cars and making them beautifully for about sixty-seven years now. Ferrari doesn’t seem to be doing any worse, but only better each year. Every year, the company makes fantastic new models, and they get great amounts of money for them because they are such beautiful cars, and almost all of them get sold. Ferrari has been so successful for so long and there is no reason for that not to continue. They should have many more years of success. This legendary car company has achieved so many things because of their unique, unbelievable creativity and knowledge of how to make cars.

Spirit Club Kicks off the Year

Taylor Selbst & Katie Tangradi

Staff Writers

We’ve got spirit, yea yea we’ve got spirit, yea yea! We’ve got a wha wha what what, we’ve got a SPIRIT CLUB! 

The week of September 15th started the kickoff of New Hope Solebury High School’s spirit club with a big help from the co-presidents, Nick Vandenberg and Katie Tangradi, and teacher advisors, Dr. Lengyel and Mr. Marchok. The first meeting was off to a great start with a shocking number of 20 students and more are still expected to join. All students are encouraged to come out and participate anytime during the year. Spirit Club is a branch of student government focused on showing school pride and supporting  school sports throughout the year. The objective of Spirit Club is to encourage students of New Hope Solebury to be more engaged in a selected boy and girl sport per season.

Selection for 2014-2015 school year is as follows:

Fall:

Boys’ Football

Girls’ Volleyball

Winter:

Boys’ Basketball

Girls’ Basketball

Spring:

Boys’ Lacrosse

Girls’ Lacrosse

To encourage students to attend more football games this season Spirit Club has attached a theme to each home game to dress in a unified way such as:

·      Friday, September 19 @ 7:00 pm: America Night

·      Friday, October 10 @ 7:00 pm: Wear it Pink Night

·      Friday, October 17 @ 7:00 pm: Lions Apparel Night

·      Friday, October 31 @ 7:00 pm: Costume Night

·      Friday, November 7 @ 7:00 pm: Pajama Night

Spirit Club is going to be extremely active with all sports during homecoming week and senior nights. Spirit Club will be connected with the seniors from each sport in order to decide a theme for each night.  The committee is hoping a lot of the community comes out and helps support our teams.  This asks anyone to just show up to the weekly meetings, and be sure to bring your spirit!

Patricia McCormick Visits NHS

Sienna Lee

Editor in Chief

  Patricia McCormick visited the High School on Thursday, September 11th to speak to students of every grade about her book, Never Fall Down. This was the book selected as New Hope’s schoolwide summer reading book, as part of the ‘one-book-one-school’ initiative.

 Never Fall Down is a true story about a Cambodian boy named Arn who experienced the tragedies and horrors that occurred when the Khmer Rouge were in power. The Khmer Rouge forced Arn’s entire village to flee, and after being forced to walk the countryside where many people died of exhaustion and starvation, they are imprisoned in work camps. Arn witnesses terrible acts of violence while in this camp, as well as the death of family members. It is a story of how he remains strong, creates relationships, and finds positivity in order to survive.

 Mrs. Schwander introduced the author before she spoke, listing her many awards and achievements. McCormick was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2012, and Never Fall Down was awarded the NY Times Notable Book of 2012, as well as “Best Book of the Year” by Huffington Post and School Library Journal. Archbishop Desmond Tutu praised this book, saying that it was “one of the most inspiring and powerful books I’ve ever read”. She was also a New York Foundation of the Arts fellow in 2004, and a German Peace Prize winner  for youth literature in 2009.

 McCormick was a very engaging and informative speaker. She began by showing a video which described important events in Arn’s life and featured personal interviews with him. Then, after reading two brief passages from the book, she opened up to questions from the students.

 Bailey Jaronski stepped up to ask the first question, asking how the author originally met Arn. McCormick answered that she lived in a small apartment building in New York at the the time, and one of her neighbors suggested Arn’s story for her next book and introduced her to him. “At first I was very cautious” she said, “in that I didn’t know this man, I didn’t know how traumatized her was, I didn’t know how much he had suffered.” In telling his story, Arn’s memory was fragmented, and he would frequently jump around to different points. She decided to take on the writing of his story because she realized that she needed someone to help him put his story in order. She came to have a deep connection with Arn. He would become emotional telling his story, and after every session at least one of them would end up in tears.

 Arn also took her to Cambodia, where they visited the locations described in the book. She met Sambo, who in the book is a Khmer Rouge soldier that did many terrible things but also helped to save a boy’s life. She says that he is a very complicated person, as he was only 17 when he became a Khmer Rouge. When she interviewed him he said that he did nothing wrong during his time as a Khmer Rouge. They believed that they were doing a good thing, because they were protecting their country from Western influence. Arn also still keeps in touch with Mek, who is like a second father to him. The two performed at Lincoln Center in New York together.

 When asked what inspired her to become a writer, she said that she had a very turbulent childhood, and writing was her way of escaping the reality that she was in. She went into journalism at first, where she learned how to interview and work with deadlines, but eventually got back into fiction writing. She described the drafting process as being the hardest part of writing the book, but she took it one page at a time. The biggest decision was to write Arn’s voice in book, since it is not standard English, but ultimately she decided to write it that way because of its unique and sincere quality.

 Another subject she talked about was the interview process. She said that sometimes she had to pull back, due to the intense emotional content of the story. Other time, it was necessary to ask Arn to go more in depth on certain topics, because he would sometimes try to skirt around events, particularly those that he felt guilt over. However, McCormick included all of the information he gave in the novel.

 McCormick’s most recent work was working with Malala Youszafsi in writing her memoir for young readers. She plans to continue with her passion for writing, and helping people tell their story. Never Fall Down was an intense and compelling read, and it was an honor to have her speak to our student body.

2014 Ebola Outbreak Causes Panic

Hannah Mui 
Staff Writer

The 2014 Ebola outbreak has become the largest Ebola outbreak to ever occur. Originating in Guinea, the outbreak has now spread to other countries in West Africa such as Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. As of Sept,14, there has been a total of 5,347 cases of Ebola, but only 3,095 laboratory confirmed cases according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Death tolls are continuing to rise, surpassing 2,630 because of the inability to treat patients in West Africa.

Ebola is a rare and deadly virus that causes bleeding inside and outside the body. As the virus spreads through the body, it damages your immune system and internal organs. Eventually, Ebola causes the amount of blood-clotting cells to drop, which results in uncontrollable bleeding.There is a period of time between the infection of the patient and the time that they finally experience symptoms. It can be spread from person to person by skin contact and bodily fluids. Ebola cannot be spread through air, water, or food.

Countries in Africa that are experiencing an active outbreak have been screening all passengers on planes for Ebola. Although many West African countries are screening passengers to ensure Ebola does not spread further, the examiner may not be able to catch passengers who have recently been infected. During the short incubation time that infected patients they are able to get on planes and spread it by visiting countries.  

Patrick Sawyer, a 40-year-old lawyer, was infected with the virus while working in Liberia. Sawyer and one other aid worker were brought to the U.S. for treatment. Sawyer was in Liberia caring for his sick sister who had Ebola, although he did not know at the time. He is one of the first Americans to contract the virus. 

Currently there are no vaccines for Ebola that have been put through human trials. Some treatments have been tested on animals and been proven effective. American aid worker, Rick Sacra, 51, has recently been released from three weeks of isolation at the Nebraska Medical Center. There Sacra received an experimental drug called TKM-Ebola and two blood transfusions from another American aid worker that survived the disease. Doctors believe that the blood transfusions will help infected patients fight off the disease.The best thing for someone to do who is experiencing symptoms of Ebola is to see a doctor immediately.  

Recently the CDC has confirmed the first case of Ebola in the United States.Thomas Eric Duncan had traveled to Liberia and arrived back in the U.S. on Sept, 20. The CDC Director, Thomas Frieden addressed the public about the individual with the virus. Duncan began to experience symptoms a few days after his arrival back in the U.S. When Duncan first visited the hospital, he was sent home under the belief he only had a mild fever. A few days later he was admitted into the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.

After those few days of experiencing the beginning of symptoms, Duncan came into contact with dozens of people. Duncan’s family including his wife, child, and two nephews have been kept in their apartment where Duncan was ill. CDC officials are working on identifying people that came in contact with Duncan, So far, the virus has been contained to the Duncan family.

Studying Gets a Technological Twist

Claudia Kolinchak and Victoria Siano

Staff Writers

As school starts this year, so does a new generation of technology. Students in the New Hope-Solebury High School and teachers all over the district were given laptop/tablets this year to aid them in their school work. These devices come with the ability to download a variety of applications that are designed to make a student’s daily school life easier. They also come with some apps installed right out of the box. The question remains: How do you get the most out of this device?

Throughout their day, students put these apps to the test, using them not only for their classes, but for their own personal use as well. One example is the Calendar app which allows you to set events and see them on your calendar homescreen. When it is time for an event, an  alert will pop up on your computer. These versatile devices come with the calendar previously downloaded to them. Another excellent program for studying and taking notes that comes previously installed is One Note. “(OneNote) is a great interface for delivering the material” says one teacher who uses the program regularly.  When using this application, students can upload documents and type or draw on them as if they were a worksheet, making OneNote perfect for note-taking. This is also a great study method for upcoming tests.  

Another practical study tool that can be added to your device is the Flashcards app. On this, you have access any set of quizlet cards in the whole database and can create and edit your own sets. You can download sets from your quizlet account to your tablet as well. Flashcards is a great tool for studying because you have easy access to the sets, and you do not need to create an account.     

With access to these apps, students can increase their academic abilities and their time management skills as well.

5 Places to go this weekend

by Katie Hunt and Bernadette Del Prado

Do you ever have those weekends where you really want to do something adventurous or fun and don't know where to go? Here is some help! This is a list of the top five entertaining places and events that everyone should visit this weekend!

1. Crusader Paintball  

Crusader Paintball is the “BEST Paintball field near Philadelphia, Princeton, and Trenton.” Want to have the ultimate thrill of paintball, but don't want to drive all the way up to the Poconos? Then this is the perfect place for you! They offer private field play for any special occasion or you could just hop onto the field during their public walk-on hours. Located at 225 Lincoln Highway Fairless Hills, PA 19030 or contact them at 215-949-4600.

Hours:

Tuesday - Thursday: 2:00pm to 8:00pm

Saturday & Sunday: 9:00am to 4:00pm

2. Brunswick Zone Bowling/Laser Tag

Brunswick Zone XL is everything you are looking for this weekend! With 48 bowling lanes, 6 billiard tables, a Game Zone arcade, Lazer Zone arena, and a Bar & Grill everyone in the family as something to do. Located at 100 East Street Road Feasterville, PA 19053 or Contact them at 844-269-5113.

Hours:

Sunday - Wednesday: 9:00am to Midnight

Thursday: 9:00am to  1:00am

Friday & Saturday: 9:00am to 3:00am

3. Lambertville Food Fair

The Lambertville Food Fair is the place to go this October. This premier food event has the classic Lambertville dining establishments as well as the Philadelphia Region’s best ethnic and speciality food trucks. Located throughout Lambertville on Thursday, October 16th: 5pm - 10pm. For more information visit www.foodfairlambertville.com

4. New Hope Outdoors Arts and Crafts Festival 2014

On September 27-28 the annual New Hope Arts and Crafts Festival finally arrives. This “artsy” festival will be featuring many exhibits filled with tremendous creations of local artists from mind-blowing photographs to sensational jewelry to exquisite paintings and with free admission. This event is located in Downtown New Hope from 10am-6pm on Saturday and 10am-5pm on the Sunday. Don’t miss it!

5. Frenchtown Roller Rink

If you want to have a good time this weekend without breaking the bank, then the Frenchtown Roller Rink is the place to go! From Public Hours, Private Parties, and Seasonal Events there is no end to your ultimate skating experience. For more informations visit www.frenchtownrollerrink.com or Contact them at 908-996-6313.  

Hours:

Tuesdays - 4:00pm to 6:00pm

Admission: $7.00

Thursdays - 10:30am to 12:30pm

Admission: $5.00

Friday: 7:00pm - 10:00pm

Admission: $7.00

Saturdays: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Admission: $7.00

Sundays: 1:00pm to 4:00pm

Admission: $7.00