ECS senior Ben Harders (shown with our new College Advisor Dr. Christine McCurdy and Head of School Michael Dewey) was selected as a recipient of the Rensselaer Medal from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. This premier merit scholarship, with a value of $40,000 per year, is guaranteed for four years (five years for the B.Arch. program) for each Medalist who is accepted and enrolls at Rensselaer. For more than 100 years, Rensselaer, in conjunction with high schools around the world, has awarded the Rensselaer Medal to promising secondary school students who have distinguished themselves in mathematics and science. The Medal was first presented in 1916 with the purposes of recognizing the superlative academic achievement of young men and women and motivating students toward careers in science, engineering, and technology. Rensselaer is the oldest continuously operating technological university in both the English-speaking world and the Americas. The Institute was the first to grant a civil engineering degree in the United States, in 1835. Well done, Ben!