It’s no secret that CHS offers top-of-the-line academics. Over the years, CHS has received numerous awards and accolades for its excellent performance across the board. Recently, the University of Maryland named CHS the eighth-largest source of students for its Clark School for Engineering.

The ranking was based on the number of students from each school that went into UMD’s engineering program. According to the UMD website, 12 CHS graduates enrolled in the Clark School for Engineering, compared to the number one school, Richard Montgomery, which sent 25.

“I think what sets us apart from other schools is that we have way more students taking physics,” AP Physics teacher Adam Fugal said. “Previous schools that I’ve been to have exactly one physics teacher and half their classes do chemistry and matter and energy. We’re special in that we have eight sections of physics, which is incredible in this count.”

According to Fugal, in addition to many students being interested in physics, CHS teachers are part of the reason for excellent performance.

“The beginner classes at the UMD engineering program are physics classes, so it matches up exactly with what they [the CHS physics teachers have already] started,” Fugal said.

Similar to what students do in the Clark program, CHS physics classes do many hands-on labs.

“We do a lot of theoretical labs, so it helps with engineering,” Fugal said. “We try to incorporate hands on components, and they’re the exact same things that you do once you get into an engineering program. It applies to chemistry as well, and also our programming courses here. Specifically for physics classes, the labs are probably the most important part to get people ready for the engineering program.”