The Burnaby school board recognized the top 2015 grad from each of its high schools at a board meeting Tuesday.
The Governor General’s Academic Medal for secondary schools is awarded to the grad with the highest average mark for all of his or her grade 11 and 12 courses.
For 2014/15 those students were Alpha’s Salina Kung and Burnaby Central’s Nikola Surjanovic, now studying at SFU; Burnaby Mountain’s Bryan Hong, now at UCLA; Burnaby North’s Scott Xiao, now at Harvard; Burnaby South’s Sophie Whiticar, now at the University of Calgary; Byrne Creek’s Jeeyoun (Andrew) Jeong, now at UBC; Cariboo Hill’s Simran Sarwara, now at Capilano University; and Moscrop’s Zi Ying (Kathy) Fan, now at Princeton.
SFU again tops again
Simon Fraser University has again been rated Canada’s top comprehensive university by Maclean’s in 2016 rankings released last Thursday.
SFU has landed the top spot in the annual national rankings 12 times over the past 25 years, including seven of the last eight years.
SFU also scored high in terms of its national reputation – eighth overall out of 49 universities in all categories.
Reputational rankings are based on a survey of university faculty and senior administrators, high school guidance counsellors and business people across the country.
Maclean’s rated SFU seventh for most innovative, ninth for highest quality and 11th in the leader-of-tomorrow category.
SFU scored particularly high for faculty and student awards, faculty research grants and student services, placing second among all comprehensive universities in these categories.
The university also ranked first in library resources.
World Scholar’s Cup
Burnaby North Secondary students have launched the district’s first-ever World Scholar’s Cup club.
An international academic tournament designed to bring students from different cultures together to discuss issues and ideas, the World Scholar’s Cup features teams squaring off in multiple-choice, team-debate and collaborative-writing challenges.
Topics include science, literature, the arts, history and social studies.
Teams first compete in regional contests – with B.C. hosting its first-ever competition in May – vying for berths in the Global Round and, ultimately, the Tournament of Champions, held annually at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.
The World Scholar’s Cup currently attracts teams from more than 40 countries.
The Burnaby North club started two months ago and has nine members on three three-member teams.
Their goal, according to club founder Chris Zhu, is to make the Global Round in June.
Do you have an item for Class Act? Send news from Burnaby schools to Cornelia by email, cnaylor@burnabynow.com, or find her on Twitter @CorNaylor.
