Comments about ‘Cream of the Crop: Sterling Scholars awarded’

Let me think about this one. BYU or MIT. Yeah, tough decision here.

BYU in a heartbeat!

Congratulations to the winners. Having been through this with several children, it requires endless hours and a great deal of commitment.

Now, where are the articles about other winners and runners-up in other parts of the state? Aren't they also worthy of mention? Sterling Scholars that don't happen to live on the Wasatch Front should be every bit as deserving of news coverage.

Also, why does the paper censor comments that are critical of your coverage? Shame on you... You censor those comments while posting comments about whether a student should attend BYU or MIT.

Agreed with the previous comment, BYU & MIT... You have to be kidding me On ward to Massachusetts my young one!!

Looking at the winners and runners up, the furthest south honoree is from Salem Hills in Utah County. It is hard to believe that there are no kids worthy of recognition south of Utah County. What gives?

Hiram, I majored in math at BYU, and my advice to you is go to MIT. You will receive a much better math education there than at BYU. The professors at BYU are excellent mathematicians, but not very good teachers. That's just my experience.

Is MIT where you learned to spell and punctuate?

There are many reasons why a student might choose BYU over MIT for an undergraduate education. One issue is cost. This young man probably has a full scholarship to BYU, but may not have the equivalent at MIT. Sometimes these schools will not maintain your scholarship or keep your place while you serve a mission, if that is in his plans. Perhaps he wants to go to undergraduate school where he has a greater chance of marrying a young woman of his own faith. It is his decision, not yours.

BYU has a terrific record in getting its graduates into top graduate schools like MIT. I have no doubt that, were he to attend BYU, a young man of his talent will have the chance to go to MIT following graduation if that is what he chooses.

West High School got FOUR awards. That's pretty impressive for a single school. Skyline is the only other school to acheive multiple awards with two. They must be doing something right at West High School.

So can homeschoolers compete for this? Cuz according to advocates, shouldn't up to 30% of these awards goto the homeschooled?

Congratulations to all the recipients on the school, region, and state level and especially to those from the rural communities who have to put forth an incredible effort to access/create opportunities that are more readily available to the students living in the "big city." We're proud of you, Deborah, and as a family want to pay special tribute to your teachers Ralph Matson, Deborah Moench, Janet Gray, and Lela Benson who give so generously to all of their students and to the music/arts community of this great state.

In the joy of the moment, I failed to mention Deborah Fery's vocal coaches: Claudia Bigler and Tammy VanDusen who have. like her other teachers. been wonderful mentors!

I would hope he Chooses M.I.T. What an amazing opportunity, many kids have the M.I.T. Dream very few get the opportunity to attend..........

Another reason could be Extracurricular. MIT isn't famous for its ball room dance team you know.

By my count, I can't see any students from schools from Davis County that won. There's Weber County schools, Box Elder County, SLC and south... but big gap there...

The story did list the categories these students are judged on - equitable geographic distribution wasn't one of them - sorry.

Why KSL/Deseret don't let private school students participate on this important award? If they do so, then this really will a representation of Utah.

(taken from their own website)

The Sterling Scholar Awards have spread throughout Utah, with participants from nearly 92 public high schools, divided into five regions.

Because of the distance involved and differing academic circumstances, the program is conducted in five independent areas throughout the state's 40 school districts and 29 counties.

These areas are the Wasatch Front, Northeast Utah, Central Utah, Southeast Utah and Southwest Utah. Each area follows the guidelines established by the Deseret Morning News and KSL Television, sponsors of the Sterling Scholar Awards since 1962. However, only the Wasatch Front competition is directly administered by the Deseret Morning News and KSL Television.

# Wasatch Front Counties: Box Elder, Cache, Weber, Davis, Salt Lake, Tooele, Utah

# Northeast Utah Counties: Rich, Morgan, Summit, Wasatch, Duchesne, Dagget, Uintah

# Central Utah Counties: Juab, Sanpete, Millard, Sevier, Piute, Wayne

# Southwest Utah Counties: Beaver, Iron, Garfield, Washington, Kane

# Southeast Utah Counties: Carbon, Emery, Grand, San Juan

That OK for you all?

I think private school students, as well as home school students, should be allowed to compete. After all, they can all take the tests, etc. that are required to be judged, and some of them are very talented and involved in significant community activities.
As for the BYU-MIT consideration, individual decision, for sure.
But I've always been very satisfied that my son chose BYU Law School over Michigan and other top schools that asked him to apply after seeing his LSAT scores. (He went to public and private schools.)
And another of my sons graduated from BYU-H with terrific opportunities for research in other countries (including China) that he might never have received at other colleges. He is now completing a Master's at Embry Riddle, probably the top aeronautical university in the country. (He was home-schooled, with a year part-time at a private school.)
We don't have to be ashamed of a BYU education!

Why should home school students be allowed to compete? That way they can study 6 hours a day for science and win the science award, while other catagories are not studied at all. Spelling bee winners do that, spend all day spelling so they can win, but have them compete in math and they are a deer in the head lights - I speak from experience.

You're completely correct. So these are the winners from the Wasatch Front.
Wouldn't it be great to have one more phase where the region winners could be judged together?

Perhaps home schooled students are not allowed to compete because they don't receive grades and don't have the opportunity to participate in extra-curricular activities that figure into the judging. The GPA is one of the first things judges look at. I'm not sure why private schools aren't allowed to compete. Maybe they choose not to.