The BASIS Independent Silicon Valley Quiz Bowl team earned an impressive 8th-place finish at the 2026 NAQT Middle School National Championship Tournament, held May 8–10, 2026, in Chicago, Illinois. Competing against 192 teams from across the country, the result marks the program’s first national-level trophy since 2018. The tournament is widely regarded as the pinnacle of middle school academic competition in the United States.
Qualifying for the national championship alone is considered a major accomplishment, particularly within the highly competitive Northern California Quiz Bowl circuit. BISV entered the tournament as one of the top-ranked teams in the nation after winning multiple regional tournaments throughout the season, carrying that momentum into one of the strongest national fields in recent years.
Team members from left, Andrew F., Ishani D., Ishaan D., and Aditya H.
What makes the team’s achievement especially remarkable is the composition of the roster. Despite being one of the younger teams competing at the tournament, the group worked together to secure a top-10 national finish and establish BISV among the country’s elite middle school Quiz Bowl programs.
The National Championship result also capped an exceptional season for Ishaan D. Earlier this year, he was named NAQT Middle School Player of the Week by the National Academic Quiz Tournaments organization, a national recognition awarded to standout players during the regular season. At the national championship tournament, he also earned an All-Star Award, an honor reserved for the top 30 highest-scoring individual competitors across the entire field. These accomplishments follow his Rising Star Award earned at the 2025 National Championship, further establishing him as one of the nation’s most accomplished middle school Quiz Bowl competitors.
The 2026 National Championship team included Ishaan D. (Grade 8) as captain, along with Grade 6 students Aditya H., Andrew F., and Ishani D. as team members. The team’s achievement was also featured in the Mercury News, highlighting this exciting milestone on a broader stage.
Congratulations to the BISV Quiz Bowl team on an outstanding season and a historic national finish.
BASIS Independent Silicon Valley is a TK – Grade 12 private school, providing students with an internationally benchmarked liberal arts and sciences curriculum, with advanced STEM offerings. Considering joining the Bobcat community? To join our interest list for the next school year and receive admissions updates and more, please click here.
Mr. Seto holds an MA in Counseling Psychology from Yorkville University and BA from The University of Western Ontario. Originally from Toronto, Canada, he is a Registered Psychotherapist and Canadian Certified Counselor. He has spent the past six years at St. Andrew’s College, a leading independent boarding school, where he served as the school’s first full-time counselor and a student and staff wellness leader, working with students across grades 5 through 12.
Mr. Seto believes effective student support is holistic and relationship-driven. Students thrive in communities that foster a genuine sense of belonging and are provided the structures, resources, and opportunities that support their growth. At St. Andrew’s, he worked across all of these areas, providing direct individual support, building programs, coaching teams, and organizing student and staff events.
Mr. Seto joins BASIS Independent Dublin as a founding member and looks forward to being part of a community that is just beginning to take shape. Outside of work he enjoys spending time with his wife, competing in squash, playing chess, and staying active.
What inspired you to work in schools, and what drew you to the BASIS Independent Dublin community?
I have spent the past six years at St. Andrew’s College, a leading independent boarding school in Canada, and have come to appreciate the impact a positive school environment can have. Beyond academics, schools are a place where students figure out what they are good at, where friendships form, and where they are exposed to opportunities they might not have found anywhere else. Supporting students through that and being part of the programming and planning behind it is work I find genuinely meaningful.
With BASIS Independent Dublin being in its founding year, I look at this as an opportunity to create a supportive, student-centered culture. I am looking forward to being part of building a school where students have a strong sense of belonging and can thrive.
How would you describe your approach to student support and engagement?
Approachability and consistency are two things I prioritize when working with students. Students should know they can come to you regardless of what they are dealing with, and this involves having the right structures and resources in place so that when they do, there is something meaningful to offer. Support works best when it is accessible for a variety of needs.
My background as a counselor and clinician shapes a lot of how I work with students. I approach conversations with patience and without judgment, and I try to understand what is going on underneath the surface rather than responding only to what is immediately visible. From there the focus becomes identifying what supports and resources can genuinely help, and making sure students and families know what is available to them.
What aspect(s) of your new role are you most excited about?
I am looking forward to establishing relationships with students and families at BASIS Independent Dublin as we all head into its founding year, understanding what this community needs, and building the kind of support structures that can grow with the school over time.
BASIS Independent Dublin is a Grades 5 – 12 private school, providing students with an internationally benchmarked liberal arts and sciences curriculum, with advanced STEM offerings. Considering joining the BASIS Independent Dublin community? To join our interest list for the next school year and receive admissions updates and more, please click here.
The Senior Project is an independent, student-led culmination of our high school experience. After three years of academic preparation, our seniors are ready to spend the last trimester of their high school careers applying the skills and knowledge they have gained to develop a project that is insightful, academically rigorous, and professional in nature. This year, we are proud to showcase a senior from one of our neighboring campuses, BASIS Independent Silicon Valley, Aarohi G.
Week 9: Second Stages
This week, my priority continues to be wrapping up my work with civics education requirements and on-campus polling. Results and progress on this front will come next week two, as I wrap up with analysis that keeps high-schoolers and non-voting methods of participation in mind.
Civics Education
To study civics education, I chose to see if there was a correlation between states’ requirements and their average voter turnout over the timeframe of 2014 to 2024. To do this, I first compiled the data from a study by Craiutu and Ngalande titled “State Civics Requirements In 2024.” This article detailed the states that participated in each combination of civics course and test (ex. no course and no test, no course and test not required to pass, etc.)
Then, I found the average voter turnout for each state and created a heatmap showing, as a scale which combinations corresponded to the least and highest voter turnout.
On-Campus Polling
The states selected for this study appeared neither in SDVR or AVR lists, to remove possibility of impact from these legislations. As manually entering the data proved to be the only option, I began for the first three states on the list. Using the College Scorecard dataset, which contains comprehensive details on each college in the U.S., I clustered similar colleges by factors like tuition, acceptance rate, and type (private, for-profit, non-profit, etc.).
From these clusters, I paired the most similar colleges within the state, where one college was a treatment university found in the list offering on-campus polling sites, and the other is a control. Finally, I affirmed each college’s validity to belong within their own clusters by calculating their silhouette score (colorcoded indicating green as very reliable, yellow as fairly reliable, and red is unreliable).
For the next week, I’ll be tackling the second step to this analysis: comparing the number of registered voters in each college in the pair. To do this, I’ll be accessing the college’s NSLVE reports. While some are easily found online, and colleges who participate are found on a website called All In Challenge, that website often allows colleges to hide their reports from public view. So, for those that I cannot find online, I’ll be reaching out to All In representatives for the reports, as suggested on the website.
Week 10: Forward Steps
This week, I got to make major improvements to my process for studying on-campus polling sites that will help me wrap up this stage.
As we discussed last week, my two main sources for this section of the project were Voter Friendly Campus and College Scorecard. The first offers a list of the voter-friendly campuses per state that offer a polling site in two-school-year intervals. The states I chose, which never had Same Day or Automatic Voter Registration, were Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, and North Carolina. College Scorecard offers comprehensive information on each U.S. college, which I used to determine the most similar pairs of control and treatment colleges.
Now, I increased the number of parameters used to judge whether two colleges were similar, now being able to determine the size of colleges (to avoid comparing very big colleges to small ones) and separate community colleges from 4-year institutions.
When making the new pairs, I included both of their individual silhoutte scores (determining how well they belonged in their own college groups) and their match distance (how closely the two colleges were related to each other). This two-method approach ensures I picked the best pairs. From there, I chose the best from each state.
Now the challenge was one that I had discussed last week, finding the voter registration counts within each college. It’s the best way to see real effects of polling sites. To do this, I was searching the internet for each college’s NSLVE reports, where they disclose information like this.
And while a lot of these pairs can’t be counted because their information isn’t online, the ones that can will be the specific case studies I’ll focus on in my final analysis. It seems like an inevitable limitation of studying on-campus polling sites.
So while finding the data for this wasn’t as straightforward as some other variables I studied, I’m glad I can still move forward.
BASIS Independent Dublin is a Grades 6 – 12 private school, providing students with an internationally benchmarked liberal arts and sciences curriculum, with advanced STEM offerings. Considering joining the BASIS Independent Dublin community? To join our interest list for the next school year and receive admissions updates and more, please click here.
The Senior Project is an independent, student-led culmination of our high school experience. After three years of academic preparation, our seniors are ready to spend the last trimester of their high school careers applying the skills and knowledge they have gained to develop a project that is insightful, academically rigorous, and professional in nature. This year, we are proud to showcase a senior from one of our neighboring campuses, BASIS Independent Fremont, Patrick Z.
Week 9: Lifting the Paper Weight
Hi everyone and welcome to Week 9 of my senior project blog! This entire week has been spent working on scientific communication. I drafted the full research paper, which was as mentally taxing as debugging my quantum circuits. I used the noise sweep experiment results to draw conclusions using principles of entanglement and superposition, and made sure to explain the theoretical advantages of quantum neural networks without overusing complex TensorFlow codes. The majority of my time was actually spent aligning my references to perfection, in ACS format, and trying to fix the problem of not having enough bolded years or italicized volume numbers.
As soon as the paper was done, I started planning out visuals for my Senior Project Exhibition. Transforming a large scientific paper into an attractive poster and a compelling presentation involves many different challenges. I decided to start with designing my poster and its hierarchy. I put the circuit architecture side by side with a graph of the model breaking down under Additive White Gaussian Noise: a visual contrast intended to help my audience grasp my argument. In parallel, I started outlining my presentation slides so that I could tell a clear story from my eureka moment about how qubits are disrupting cryptography and leading to accurate traffic light classification models.
Doing all this work, an even bigger revelation came to me: Commit Day is coming on Friday! It’s crazy how, while discussing the future of quantum computing, I’m about to finalize my own plans for college. It’s incredible how close we are to graduation, and working on this project makes me realize how everything is ending. This process is pretty emotional, but it’s amazing how everything is falling into place. Next week, I’m going to concentrate on rehearsing my speech and finishing the last touches of my interactive web app demo.
Week 10: Pixels and Practice
Hello, and welcome back to Week 10 of my senior project blog! With Commit Day finally behind me, a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and I now have the freedom to focus fully on preparing for my capstone exhibition. This week’s major victory has definitely been completing my presentation slides, and the primary hurdle I had to overcome has been ensuring that I don’t bore my audience to death with dry TensorFlow metrics and technicalities. Instead, I decided to craft a compelling narrative: a story of classical AI’s inability to cope with the chaos inherent to real-life data, such as blurry dashcam footage, and how QNN entanglement acts as a natural buffer against errors.
While crafting my presentation, I have also been busy working on my exhibition poster. I am almost finished with it, but one final element still needs some work. At the moment, I find myself struggling immensely with the visual hierarchy, specifically placing two contrasting sets of clear, static-filled traffic light images precisely next to the degradation curves to highlight the difference in performance between my QNN and its classical counterpart. With only a couple more tweaks to the poster design, it’ll be ready for printing.
I worked hard to make sure my visual deliverables look great. However, the true horror of capstone presentations is finally dawning on me. I actually have to verbalize and explain all of this content within a limited time to a live audience. While playing with circuit designs in Google Colab is certainly much more relaxing than presenting them aloud, I will be doing the latter next week.
BASIS Independent Dublin is a Grades 6 – 12 private school, providing students with an internationally benchmarked liberal arts and sciences curriculum, with advanced STEM offerings. Considering joining the BASIS Independent Dublin community? To join our interest list for the next school year and receive admissions updates and more, please click here.
At BASIS Independent Bellevue, science comes to life through hands-on experiments, collaborative projects, and engaging investigations that encourage students to think critically and creatively. Across every division, from Primary School to High School, students are actively exploring the world around them in a variety of capacities.
Primary School: Building Curiosity Through Exploration
In Primary School, students are introduced to the wonders of science and engineering through engaging, project-based learning experiences. Throughout the primary years students deepen their knowledge of essential science concepts while teachers inspire a sense of wonder and excitement about the natural world, encouraging them to see themselves as young scientists ready to explore and discover.
In engineering classes, students explored various aspects of STEAM through units on civil and aerospace engineering. During the civil engineering unit, students worked collaboratively to design free-standing paper skyscrapers and environmentally informed cities centered around green spaces. In aerospace engineering, students designed rockets inspired by the Artemis II launch. During presentations, the BASIS Aeronautics Space Administration (B.A.S.A.) voted on the most innovative rocket design, with one winning all-girls team, impressing classmates by designing a rocket capable of cooking s’mores for astronauts during takeoff.
Class presentationsMost Innovative Rocket Design Winners!Paper skyscraper cityGrade 3 students admiring their city.A proud rocket engineer!
Students also participated in several exciting scientific investigations throughout the year. During a month-long moon phase project, students observed and documented the moon each night in moon journals before reenacting the positions of the Earth, moon, and sun to better understand lunar phases. Students also explored light energy through learning centers focused on how light travels and reflects off surfaces. Another favorite activity came during the measurement unit, where students practiced measuring liquids and following detailed lab instructions. If completed correctly, the experiment resulted in a colorful rainbow, making science both educational and exciting.
Middle School: Applying Science Through Hands-on Learning
Middle School students take scientific exploration to the next level through challenging labs, engineering projects, and interactive investigations. From grade 6–grade 8 students take three separate, concurrent science classes, biology, chemistry, and physics.
In physics classes, students participated in the “Egg War,” where they applied concepts such as Newton’s Laws, momentum, impulse, and kinematics to design vehicles capable of protecting an egg during a head-on collision. Students also explored electricity by building a variety of circuits using batteries, wires, and light bulbs, gaining firsthand experience with electrical systems and experimentation.
Final round of “The Egg War”Experimenting with circuits“The Egg War” in action
Engineering electives have also provided students with opportunities to collaborate and innovate. In grade 6 Introduction to Engineering, students worked together to build and code robots capable of competing in friendly robot battles. Through this project, students strengthened their skills in coding, construction, teamwork, and problem-solving.
Middle School chemistry students recently completed a stoichiometry lab involving a single replacement reaction between Copper (II) Sulfate and Aluminum. Students calculated theoretical yields, conducted the reaction, and analyzed their percent yield based on the copper produced. Biology students have also immersed themselves in the study of anatomy and life sciences through a variety of dissections, including cow hearts, cow eyes, frogs, and owl pellets. In addition, students explored the microscopic world by using microscopes to observe tissues, organisms, and cellular structures.
Cow heart dissectionObservations with a microscopeFrog dissectionStoichiometry labCopper yield
High School: Connecting Theory to Real-World Science
In high school science courses, students deepen their understanding of scientific concepts through advanced laboratory experiences and independent inquiry. In AP Physics 2, students conducted a capacitance lab in which they built parallel-plate capacitors using aluminum foil and textbooks. By testing how effectively paper functioned as a dielectric material, students were able to apply classroom equations to real-world experimentation and engineering design. In AP Physics 1, students got to build model trebuchets, a medieval siege engine powered by a counterweight. They explored the forces and torques acting on the system and how their design choices affected the range and accuracy of their models.
Building the trebuchetTesting the trebuchet
Honors and AP Chemistry students have also engaged in a wide variety of labs throughout the year, including titrations, acids and bases investigations, and experimental procedure design. Students are often challenged to create their own methods for achieving a scientific goal using only a provided set of materials, encouraging creativity and critical thinking in the lab. But what is the fun in chemistry without some fire? One particularly memorable experiment involved testing metals in flames to demonstrate properties of matter. By combining alcohol with different salts, students produced brilliantly colored flames that brought chemistry concepts vividly to life!
From designing rockets and building robots to conducting advanced chemistry and physics experiments, students across all grade levels are discovering that science is more than just a subject. It is an opportunity to explore, create, and innovate. Through these engaging lab experiences, our students continue to develop the problem-solving skills that will assist them in their future endeavors.
On May 1, Decision Day, our seniors gathered for a barbecue and announced their college destinations. We are so proud of all of them and the hard work it took to get to this moment.
“Our seniors have so much to celebrate this year!” says Head of School Kate Reynolds. “The opportunities they have earned are a testament to their hard work and the support from our faculty and community. They have excelled in the classroom, in clubs, and in extracurriculars outside our walls, and they have left their mark on our community. We’re thrilled to see what they do next!”
The class of 2026’s hard work is reflected in some truly impressive statistics:
95% of our graduates were accepted to a top 50 school1
70% of our graduates were accepted to a US News top 26 school
50% of our graduates were accepted to a US News top 25 school
23% were accepted into a school ranked in Times Higher Ed the global top 10
15% were accepted into a school ranked in the US News top 10
Here is an impressive list of schools where our students were accepted:
American Amherst Boston University Cal Tech Carnegie Mellon Case Western Cornell Davidson Duke Emory Georgetown George Washington Georgia Tech Harvard Johns Hopkins McGill NYU Northeastern Northwestern Oxford Purdue
Rice St. John’s College Stanford Texas A&M Virginia Tech University of California, Berkeley University of California, Irvine University of California, Los Angeles University of California, San Diego University of California, Santa Barbara University of Florida University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University of Michigan University of North Carolina University of Pennsylvania University of South Florida University of Toronto University of Virginia University of Washington Washington University in St. Louis William & Mary
Most importantly, all of our seniors have worked hard to find a place that fits them and will help them grow and pursue their goals. As college counselor Mr. Ramsby notes:
“This class, BIM’s largest to date, succeeded remarkably in their college admission process. As you can see from the stats above, they achieved outstanding results from the schools they applied to. They were extremely thoughtful and deliberate in their college searches. By this fall, they will be scattered across the United States, from California to Boston, and also into Canada and the UK.”
Among many accolades our graduates received includes over $3 million in scholarship offers. Four students received full-ride scholarship offers, including the historic Morehead-Cain scholarship. Two students received National Merit scholarships, and one is a semifinalist for the Presidential Scholar award.
Our seniors took many different paths to these destinations. Some threw themselves into scientific research. Others competed in quiz bowl or debate. Others played sports or wrote poetry. We are proud of them all, and of the young adults they have become.
In the coming weeks, we will be sharing stories of our seniors’ journeys, from when they first arrived at BIM to where they are now. We do this to celebrate our seniors and to show our younger students and families that there are many different roads to success at our school and beyond.
Wherever our seniors go, BIM will always be a welcome place for them to come home to. We will miss them and wish them well as they begin this next phase of their lives!
Congratulations, Class of 2026!
1 92% were admitted to a US News & World Report top-50 school. The US News list does not include international schools, and we also had students admitted to Toronto (global #21) and McGill (global #41) in the Times Higher Education World University rankings. Every senior was accepted to a school ranked at least in the US News top 59.
BASIS Independent McLean is an Age 2–Grade 12 private school, providing students with an internationally benchmarked liberal arts and sciences curriculum, with advanced STEM offerings. Considering joining the Red-Tailed Hawks community? To join our interest list for the next school year and receive admissions updates and more, please click here.
At BASIS Independent Schools, we believe that meaningful learning goes beyond mastering content, it challenges students to think deeply, ask difficult questions, and engage with the world around them.
That commitment was recently recognized at a national level. Ellie, a grade 7 student from BASIS Independent Manhattan, has earned first place in a Spring Education Group essay competition, selected from more than 400 submissions across 20 campuses nationwide.
A Question That Demands More Than Recall
The essay prompt asked students to reflect on a complex moment in history, not simply to recount events, but to consider their own perspective within them. It’s the kind of question that requires more than knowledge. It requires judgment, empathy, and intellectual courage.
The winning essay stood out for exactly that reason.
Rather than approaching the topic at a surface level, the student engaged with it in a way that demonstrated both analytical rigor and personal reflection, a combination that reflects the broader goals of a BASIS Independent education.
Where Academic Rigor Meets Independent Thought
Across our network, students are challenged to go beyond memorization and develop the ability to think critically and independently. Whether in the sciences or the humanities, the focus is not just on what students learn, but how they apply that learning in new and meaningful ways.
As Vice President of BASIS Independent, Toby Walker, shared:
“We are incredibly proud that this achievement reflects not only academic excellence, but the ability to engage with complex ideas in a thoughtful and deeply human way. This is exactly the kind of thinking we support and champion in our students.”
This recognition highlights an important truth: when students are held to high expectations and given the support to meet them, they rise to the challenge.
A Reflection of the Student Experience
While this award celebrates one student’s accomplishment, it also reflects something broader about the student experience at BASIS Independent Schools.
Students are encouraged to:
Ask questions without easy answers
Engage with ideas from multiple perspectives
Develop both intellectual discipline and personal voice
It is this combination, rigor paired with reflection, that prepares students not only for academic success, but for thoughtful engagement with the world beyond the classroom.
Looking Ahead
We are proud to see this kind of work recognized on a national stage and even more proud of what it represents across our schools. Read the full winning essay here.
Moments like this are not isolated; they are the result of a consistent approach to teaching and learning, one that values curiosity, depth, and independent thinking.
BASIS Independent Schools serves students PreK-Grade 12 across the United States with private schools in Bellevue and Bothell, WA; Brooklyn and Manhattan, NY; Fremont and San Jose, CA; McLean, VA; and a new school opening in Dublin, CA in fall 2026.
The Class of 2026 at BASIS Independent Silicon Valley is celebrating an exciting milestone, with college acceptances spanning highly selective universities across the United States and around the world. This year’s seniors have distinguished themselves through academic excellence, intellectual curiosity, and a sustained commitment to challenging themselves both inside and outside the classroom.
Their college outcomes reflect not only strong preparation, but also a thoughtful and intentional approach to the college search process—one focused on fit, growth, and long-term goals.
Class of 2026: At a Glance
This year’s college acceptances highlight the strength, ambition, and breadth of the Class of 2026:
College acceptances represent a significant milestone for students and families. Rather than focusing solely on rankings, our college counseling team works closely with students to identify institutions where they will be challenged, supported, and able to thrive both academically and personally.
Through individualized conversations, ongoing planning, and close collaboration with families, students are empowered to explore options that align with their interests, values, and aspirations.
Reflecting on the journey of this year’s seniors, Ms. McCollum, College Counselor, shared:
“One of the greatest joys of this work is watching students grow into the people they are meant to become, and the Class of 2026 has truly been a special group. We are incredibly proud of all they have achieved and cannot wait to see where their next chapters take them. I know they will continue to make a positive difference wherever they go.”
The Class of 2026 represents a wide range of academic interests and future pathways, from STEM and engineering to the humanities, social sciences, and interdisciplinary fields. Their acceptances reflect not only individual achievement but also a shared willingness to explore new ideas, embrace challenge, and engage meaningfully with their communities.
“I am incredibly proud of the Class of 2026 and all they have accomplished throughout the college search and application journey. Their acceptances reflect not only their academic achievements, but also their resilience, curiosity, and willingness to challenge themselves both inside and outside the classroom,” said Ms. Kolb, Head of School. “At BISV, we emphasize finding a college environment where students can grow, thrive, and pursue their individual goals, and this group of seniors has truly done just that. I am confident they will represent our community well wherever they go, and I look forward to seeing them join the ranks of our impressive alumni.”
As they prepare to take the next step in their academic journeys, we celebrate all they have accomplished and look forward to the impact they will make in the years ahead. Congratulations, Class of 2026!
Below is a comprehensive list of college acceptances, both within the United States and internationally.
CLASS OF 2026 UNITED STATES ACCEPTANCES
Adelphi University American University Amherst College Arizona State University (Downtown Phoenix) Arizona State University (Tempe) Barnard College Bates College Baylor University Bennington College Boston College Boston University California Institute of Technology California Lutheran University California Polytechnic State University (San Luis Obispo) California State Polytechnic University (Pomona) California State University (Fullerton) California State University (Long Beach) California State University (Monterey Bay) Carleton College Carnegie Mellon University Case Western Reserve University Colby College Colgate University Columbia University Cornell University Drexel University Duke University Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (Daytona Beach) Emory University Fordham University George Washington University Georgetown University Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia State University Grinnell College Harvard University Harvey Mudd College Indiana University (Bloomington) Ithaca College Johns Hopkins University Loyola Marymount University Marquette University Massachusetts Institute of Technology Michigan State University Middlebury College Mount Holyoke College New Jersey Institute of Technology New York University Northeastern University Northwestern University Nova Southeastern University Oberlin College Occidental College Oxford College of Emory University Penn State University (University Park) Pepperdine University Pitzer College Pomona College Pratt Institute Princeton University Purdue University Reed College Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rice University Ringling College of Art and Design Rochester Institute of Technology Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Rutgers University (Camden) Rutgers University (New Brunswick) Rutgers University (Newark) San Diego State University San Francisco State University San Jose State University Santa Clara University Sarah Lawrence College Scripps College Smith College St. Olaf College Stanford University Stevens Institute of Technology Stony Brook University Syracuse University Temple University Texas A&M University The New School The Ohio State University Union College University of California (Berkeley) University of California (Davis) University of California (Irvine) University of California (Los Angeles) University of California (Merced) University of California (Riverside) University of California (San Diego) University of California (Santa Barbara) University of California (Santa Cruz) University of Chicago University of Colorado Boulder University of Florida University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University of Maryland (College Park) University of Massachusetts (Amherst) University of Michigan University of Minnesota (Duluth) University of Minnesota (Twin Cities) University of Minnesota Rochester University of Nevada (Las Vegas) University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) University of Pennsylvania University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh) University of Puget Sound University of Rochester University of San Diego University of San Francisco University of Southern California University of Texas University of the Pacific University of Virginia University of Washington (Seattle Campus) University of Wisconsin (Madison) Vanderbilt University Vassar College Villanova University Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Washington University in St. Louis Wellesley College William & Mary
CLASS OF 2026 INTERNATIONAL ACCEPTANCES
Duke Kunshan University Imperial College London King’s College London The University of Edinburgh The University of Warwick University College London University of British Columbia University of Cambridge University of St Andrews University of Toronto
BASIS Independent Silicon Valley is a TK – Grade 12 private school, providing students with an internationally benchmarked liberal arts and sciences curriculum, with advanced STEM offerings. Considering joining the Bobcat community? To join our interest list for the next school year and receive admissions updates and more, please click here.
Mr. Ryan brings a passion for teaching economics and mathematics that began in his own high school classroom. He has experience with a range of courses in our network from his time teaching for BASIS Independent Silicon Valley and BASIS Independent Manhattan. These include AP Macroeconomics, AP Macroeconomics, Capstone: Game Theory, and mathematics from Algebra I through Precalculus.
Mr. Ryan earned his Bachelor of Science in Economics with a Minor in History from Binghamton University in Upstate New York. During his undergraduate years, he tutored upper-level microeconomics to college students while also volunteering as a substitute teacher in a middle school. This dual experience shaped his goal of teaching his favorite subjects at a high level to motivated middle and high school students as they begin exploring specialized academic interests.
In his classroom, Mr. Ryan focuses on personal engagement through practice problems, experiments, and instructional games. He believes that students learn best when they are actively involved in the learning process. Outside of the classroom, Mr. Ryan enjoys running, listening to podcasts, and brainstorming new lesson plans, preferably all at the same time. He finds fulfillment in constantly seeking innovative and engaging ways to inspire his students.
Are there any highlights you’d like to share about your teaching philosophy or approach? The core principles of my teaching philosophy are rooted in economics. When teaching opportunity cost, I introduce the tradeoffs inherent in the “endowment effect,” the human tendency to value something more once we own it. The endowment effect can be leveraged to the advantage of our students. We rarely overvalue the investment in our own human capital, that is, the investment in our own education. Consequently, I have consistently found that students learn best when they feel ownership over their learning. That ownership is the first meaningful step toward becoming a lifelong learner. My role is to create a healthy learning environment where that ownership is both natural and rewarding so that students continue to reinvest in themselves. That means lessons that are efficient, data-driven, and engaging. When course structures and expectations align with students’ goals, engagement rises.
What are some of the most rewarding parts of being a Subject Expert Teacher and working with BASIS Independent School students? One of the most rewarding parts of being a Subject Expert Teacher is working with students who are genuinely curious and are capable of engaging with advanced material. Teaching within an accelerated curriculum allows for deeper conversations. Our students have more opportunities to push beyond procedural fluency and towards genuine conceptual understanding. I especially enjoy watching students as they begin recognizing when they are thinking ‘like economists’, questioning incentives, recognizing tradeoffs, and using marginal analytical reasoning. Watching my students develop confidence in their skills and intellectual independence has been incredibly fulfilling.
Are there any thoughts you’d like to share with families who are joining – or who are thinking of joining – the BASIS Independent Dublin community? My aspiration is to share the confidence and excitement I have developed from joining the BASIS Independent Dublin team with our families. In my experience within the BASIS Independent network, I have been privileged to see how our strong academic framework can grow and mature over time as students and faculty work together. Being part of this flourishing institution has been deeply meaningful professionally and personally. One of the biggest draws for me to work at BASIS Independent Dublin has been the opportunity to support our school leadership in building a campus community from the ground up. I have faith in the tested success of our curriculum, our school leadership, and our amazing and growing staff.
BASIS Independent Dublin is a Grades 5 – 12 private school, providing students with an internationally benchmarked liberal arts and sciences curriculum, with advanced STEM offerings. Considering joining the BASIS Independent Dublin community? To join our interest list for the next school year and receive admissions updates and more, please click here.
