Cultivating brilliance: IMSA students immerse in high-level learning

Ask high school junior Hannah Swerbenski what she is looking forward to this spring, and her response does not include her peer group’s typical four-letter answer – prom.

Instead, Swerbenski is stoked about a couple of three-letter acronyms – the ACT and SAT.

On a recent Tuesday while walking through the halls of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, Swerbenski’s dark blond hair whipped around as she turned to respond to a question. Lips drawn back in a toothy smile, eyes wide and flashing with excitement, she blurted out the college entrance exam names almost before the question was finished.

This is Swerbenski’s second year at the residential school, which serves sophomores through seniors from throughout the state who excel in math and science.

Swerbenski, 15, was 13 years old when she decided to apply to IMSA, where today she lives in a residence hall and attends classes structured to challenge even the most gifted young adults.

“I weighed the decision,” she said. “I thought about what it would mean socially, for my friends and what I would leave at home.”

After talks with her parents, Swerbenski resolved that any sacrifice would be worth what she stood to gain. She is one of about 650 students enrolled at IMSA this year, all of whom made the same decision to forgo the comfort of home for an advanced educational experience.

Swerbenski represents one of the 20 in that group from McHenry County.

The decision has meant many things for Swerbenski, whose family lives southeast of Woodstock.

She usually sees her parents only on the weekends and must maintain her relationship with her 13-year-old sister through text messages and Facebook.

Also, when she turns 16, she will not be allowed to have a car on campus.

But those sacrifices don’t seem to faze the young teen, who is overwhelmed with gratitude for the opportunities that being a student at IMSA has afforded and for the relief she has found in finding a place where she feels stretched to reach her maximum potential.

This semester, Swerbenski is enrolled in classes including calculus, Chinese 2 and a course called Microbes and Disease, in which she is learning to understand immunology and human physiology on a cellular level.

Most of her teachers have doctorates, and her classmates all use laptops to take notes in class.

“Everyone who is here actually wants to learn and further their education,” Swerbenski said. “I love the academics, but I also feel like I learn almost as much from my peers as my teachers.”

This year, she also is working on a special research project that explores the effects of deployment on U.S. soldiers and their families. Her research will include reading scholarly texts, as well as interviews with soldiers returning from overseas.

Between classes and her two to five hours of homework each night, Swerbenski is on the tennis team, bass fishing team, debate team and student council. She also tutors several days a week.

One of her other extracurricular activities includes drafting legislation to combat the problem of limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables and healthy foods for those living in certain areas of the United States.

Max McGee, president of IMSA, said that Swerbenski’s busy schedule is typical of an IMSA student.

Swerbenski said she had no trepidation about moving to IMSA for her high school career. She went directly from being an eighth-grader at Hannah Beardsley Middle School in Crystal Lake to a sophomore at IMSA.

Since IMSA serves only sophomores through seniors, the jump Swerbenski made is typical for IMSA students. So typical, in fact, that students there have a nickname – shmen – to identify the many who enroll at a sophomore level when they are only freshman-aged.

Super-shmen are those who jump from seventh grade to sophomore status and a pseudo-shmen is someone who previously skipped a grade, but not the ninth grade.

The transition from their middle school lives to IMSA is in many ways like what 17- and 18-year-olds experience when they go away to college and includes figuring out how to juggle school, meals, laundry and free time without the oversight of a parent.

Swerbenski also had to adjust to living with a population decidedly different from her McHenry County home, where most residents are white or Hispanic. At IMSA, about 47 percent of the students are Asian or Korean, and pop music is trendy.

IMSA officials admit that sometimes homesickness is a problem. In 2010, IMSA officials estimated that up to 30 students per class drop out over their three-year stay, but the school does its best to combat it. Each wing in the residential halls has a counselor to oversee the students. And throughout the sophomore year, students spend time learning coping skills.

The challenge that stood out for Swerbenski when she made the move to IMSA was learning how to study.

“At my home school, I never had to study, so I really had to learn how and learn good study habits,” she said.

When Ty Bottorff of Lakewood first started at IMSA in 2010, it took him a little while to adjust, too.

“I’m not exactly sure if I made the right decision,” he told the Northwest Herald in November that year.

“In the long run, I think it’ll be a better decision, but right now, the classes are really hard, and there’s a lot of homework, and sometimes you want to go back to an easier school.”

Bottorff stuck it out and today as a junior at IMSA he is thriving, said his mother, Carol Bottorff.

Carol Bottorff learned about IMSA from one of her son’s teachers at Da Vinci Academy, a private elementary school in Elgin for intellectually gifted students.

Before Ty got into IMSA, Carol Bottorff was driving the 80 miles a day to take Ty to Da Vinci so that he could be challenged, she said.

Since IMSA opened in 1986, 140 McHenry County residents have attended the school.

Andrea Croll of Marengo graduated in 1997. She transferred after her freshman year at Marengo Community High School.

“When I went to IMSA, it was the first time I walked into someplace where I didn’t think I could be the No. 1 student in my class. Suddenly, I was surrounded by a community of people, many of whom I knew were smarter than me,” Croll said.

“But IMSA really encourages collaboration – when you are no longer competing to be the No. 1 student, you are more willing to work together so that everyone can succeed at a higher level than anyone could have done individually,” Croll said.

Croll earned a degree in mechanical engineering, and today the 32-year-old is the engineering program manager at Hamilton Sundstrand in Rockford.

Former Woodstock resident Arek Dreyer felt much the same.

Dreyer, 40, credits the rigorous education and experience in leadership he got at IMSA for his success today as a professional in Chicago.

“I help IT people integrate technology into their environments ... I write training material, I speak at conferences, I provide remote and on-site consulting,” he said in a recent email to the Northwest Herald.

Dreyer was just a Woodstock High School freshman who never considered himself a leader when a suggestion from his geometry teacher to investigate IMSA changed his life.

“I think a stereotype is that this school is for the highest gifted. We have students who are gifted and those who have a great demonstrated potential,” said IMSA's McGee.

“The students who come here, the last thing they are is elitists. They are some of the most down-to-earth people with whom I have been acquainted,” McGee said. “They are really committed to making a difference.”

Swerbenski said she isn’t sure what she’d like to be when she grows up, but hopes to work on treatments for spinal muscular atrophy.

IMSA at a glance

IMSA’s 650 students are from urban, suburban and rural communities throughout Illinois. The student body is 52 percent male. The students identify as the following races: 47.2 percent Asian, 44.9 percent white, 9.5 percent black and 7.8 percent Hispanic/Latino. The total exceeds 100 percent because students can identify with more than one ethnicity.

What is required to apply?
– The applications consists of an official transcript from the student's last 2½ years of school, scores on the SAT I, several long and short essays, three teacher recommendations in science, mathematics and English, and a list of awards and extracurricular activities. IMSA is state-funded and tuition-free, but an annual fee is assessed based on family size and income. It can range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars. To apply online, visit www3.imsa.edu/admissions/apply.

Summer programs
Registration for IMSA's summer programs began Feb. 27 and runs through mid-May or until enrollment is at capacity. Programs take place at sites throughout the state and are open to any third- through 10th-graders who have an interest in math and science. For information, visit www3.imsa.edu/programs/SummeratIMSA.