Thanks to her newly found fame, Ariana Grande concert tickets sell for at least $80. Selena Gomez tickets at market price go for at least $120. Boston fans, however, will soon have the opportunity to hear these singers at no charge.

This month, AMP 103.3 radio station will hold a completely free concert featuring Grande, Gomez, Jason Derulo, Sammy Adams, Timeflies and Drop City Yacht Club. The AMP 103.3 Birthday Bash will celebrate the station’s one-year anniversary on-air.

Since summer 2012, AMP 103.3 radio has embarked on a campaign to promote their station through a variety of unique approaches, including handing out stickers at an Ally Raisman meet-and-greet and giving away free goods outside the local Shaw’s supermarket.

The concert is to be held at Boston City Plaza on June 30. Doors will open at 11 am and performances will begin at 2 pm. Although entrance to the concert is free, VIP tickets are available but can only be won in a contest via the AMP 103.3 radio station.

The event will take place rain or shine and will not allow open beverage containers, blankets, chairs, and strollers.

Watching the game he loved at Fenway Park, Class of 2010 graduate Willie Allen found out when he looked on Twitter that he would soon be playing the game professionally.

Allen has played baseball since since he was seven years old, but in high school, he had trouble choosing which sport to pursue out of the three he excelled at.

He was a three-sport varsity athlete, playing football, basketball, and baseball.

“I had the most success in baseball out of all of the sports,” Allen said. “That is the game that just slowed down for me and I felt like I could take over in it.”

Allen had trouble his first year of high school, not getting along too well with the baseball coach. However, his sophomore year the school hired a new coach, one which Allen had an immediate connection with.

“When I found out we were getting a new coach I was real excited because he didn’t know any of the players,” Allen said. “Coming in fresh he had to judge everyone off talent and not who he knows and not what he had seen the season before.”

It did not take long for the new coach, Ronald Jordan, to realize the talent that Allen had.

“I knew pretty much right away that he was going to be one of my better players that I’ve had,” Jordan said. “He has all the tools: he can run, he can throw the ball, field the ball and hit the ball with power.”

Jordan gave Allen the chance he wanted, bringing him up to varsity his sophomore year to start as a shortstop.

Class of 2009 graduate Tom Haskin played with Allen during Haskin’s senior and junior years, and remembers the talent Allen possessed.

“[Allen] was just clearly the best hitter on the team–it wasn’t even a contest,” Haskin said. “The sort of talent that he had was just completely unparalleled to everyone else.”

Allen’s senior year, Jordan switched him to center field, a position Allen was neither used to nor interested in playing.

“Moving me to center field made me really upset at the time,” Allen said. “But Coach Jordan told me that at the end of the day I would be thanking him because that’s where I would be playing in college.”

Despite what Allen wanted, Jordan knew outfield was the best fit for him due to his tremendous arm strength and speed.

“[Allen] wasn’t too happy when I first did it, because you know, shortstop is kind of like the glamour position for a lot of kids,” Jordan said. “Once he got out there and he got comfortable, I think he realized that that was the place for him to be.”

After joining varsity and throughout his three years at South, Allen proved himself as a baseball player not only through the comments of his teammates but by being a two-time recipient of the Hamill award, given to the best baseball player in Newton, being one of the only two players to receive the award twice .

Even so, Jordan managed to make sure that the multiple home runs and awards were not making Allen too confident.

“[Coach Jordan] helped me a lot by discipline,” Allen said. “Even if I was the hot bat in the lineup if I swung at a first pitch curveball he would sit me down and not to punish me but just to make me a better ball player overall.”

Aware of Allen’s talent, Jordan saw that scouts from multiple teams, including the San Francisco Giants and the New York Mets, came to take a look at Allen during his senior year.

Allen knew he wanted to pursue baseball, and although he was unsure in the beginning where to continue his baseball career, one of Allen’s coaches who had attended Western Oklahoma State College, a Division II school, advised Allen to visit it.

Allen decided to attend Western Oklahoma; however, he was redshirted his freshman year, which meant he would not play.

The next year Allen got a starting role on the team, which had just won the junior college national championship the year before.

Allen finished the season off with a .362 batting average, 11 home runs, 31 runs batted in, 41 runs scored, and 21 stolen bases.

“[Allen’s] what they call in the scouting world, in baseball, a five-tool player,” Jordan said. “He can run, he can hit [and hit for power], he can throw the ball, and he can field the ball; he has all the tools.”

Allen was drafted in the 16th round by the Washington Nationals, which came as no surprise to him.

“A bunch of scouts came out and they were all really impressed by my speed and my athletic ability so that’s when I really knew I had a good chance if I stayed focused,” Allen said.

Haskin, Allen’s teammate, was not surprised, either.

“I know he put in so much work, but just sitting there as a teammate, it was just an unbelievable experience to watch him play,” Haskin said. “The way he hit was just on a completely different level than everyone else.”

The Nationals tried to contact Allen through his home phone, but because he was at the Red Sox game, Allen found out via Twitter.

Allen attributes his success to listening to his coaches and encourages high school players out there to do the same.

“Just take whatever your coaches say in and put it towards your work ethic, and you’ll be successful not only on the baseball field or basketball court but in life, and thats what I learned through baseball,” Allen said. “When I came to college, I went onto the baseball field wanting to learn baseball but I came out of it knowing even more about life.”

Allen visited South to give baseball players a few words of encouragement and advice. Junior baseball captain Erik Manditch is used to hearing stories about Allen all the time from Jordan.

“I have seen Allen around the campus before, and in the weight room, and he’s been around the field before, and all I‘ll say is that as an athlete, he’s one of the best,” Manditch said. “He can throw, he has got a  great arm and he can really hit the ball.”

“Repetition is the key to success and you can’t just go out one day and work hard and then take a day off; it’s all about repetition and being consistent,” Allen said. “I’m looking forward to seeing the competition and seeing what its like to play pro ball and meeting new people.”

Few people can make a career out of photography, and few people can start their own businesses.

Yet as a sophomore in high school, Alexi Poirier Reibman has already done both successfully.

Reibman is a photographer and videographer, and is the creator of his own photo company, A. B. R. Productions.

From headshots to fashion photography to bar mitzvah celebrations to prom portrait sessions for North and South students, Reibman is versatile as a photographer and as an artist.  He also films music videos, commercials, and movies, and even offers his graphic design skills to his clients.

Reibman’s website states that he “has been obsessed with images since he was a small child,” and likewise, the photographic production business has been a part of his life for as long as he can remember.

“I don’t really remember when I started doing photography,” Reibman said, “but my uncle is a film director in Hollywood and he has worked on TV shows such as Pretty Little Liars, Medium, and 24.  He was the one who got me interested in the film and photography industry.”

Launching himself into the film business, Reibman’s work has been highly successful and well-recognized, earning him the title of “Most Valuable Intern” from the local broadcasting station NewTV and the Paul Stein Leadership Award from the Newton Schools Foundation.

The work, however, he enjoys most is the work that brings the most satisfaction to others.

“My favorite work is the fashion stuff and the shoots I do with artists and with kids from South,” Reibman said.  “I love meeting people and taking cool pictures for people that they love and can share.”

While, according to teachers, Reibman remains humble about his work, South photo teacher Robert Bouchal believes that Reibman is worthy of the contentment and confidence he fosters in what he does.

“Reibman is an independent and strong-willed person,” Bouchal said, “and is well-deserving of his pride in his work.”

Reibman recently filmed a music video for the band No Trace, product of South sophomores Brendan Duggan and Michael Garfinkle.  The video documented No Trace’s Bruins Anthem, and premiered on CBS on the evening of June 9.

Duggan agrees that Reibman has a good work ethic, and that he produces strong work in turn.

“Alexi is a very hard-working kid,” Duggan said.  “When we’re doing a shoot, he never gets distracted, and his focus is contagious. I have collaborated with him on all sorts of projects involving recording music videos and photo shoots, and the final products are always incredible– he always gives us top-notch work, and we appreciate that.”

Bouchal notes that Reibman’s most recent work has been with film, and he foresees a successful career in film for Reibman, potentially one in which he will even be able to fund his own movies with profits from his still-photography work.

Reibman’s most recent film, the NewTV student production of The Shadows, opened Tuesday at the West Newton Cinema.

“He is determined, and has a knack for entrepreneurship,” Bouchal said. “I fully expect that he will continue to work at a professional level and, by doing so, that he will generate enough capital to fund his future ventures.”

Movie Trailer: http://www.newtv.org/home/the-shadows-premiere/article

Full gallery: http://abrpro.tv/test/

His store: http://areibman.deviantart.com/

I don’t think anyone can dispute the statement that the senior prom is one of, if not the largest, event for many high school students. Strategically scheduled post- last day of classes for seniors and before graduation, the prom acts as a final event to draw the grade together in a fun and energetic atmosphere. While the energy one would expect from the final dance was certainly present this year’s senior prom, it came at the cost of romantic interaction.

As a junior, I was unaware of the relationships present in the senior class. As such, I was unable to determine which couples at Prom had existed before the event, which couples consisted of two friends joining for the duration of the event and which couples had not decided upon their status at the time of the dance. I can say, however, that at the start of the event, there was a much larger emphasis on attendees and their dates than there was at the junior semi. Couples often decided to take multiple pictures together and seemed to stick together more often than couples at semi. Strangely, though, this dynamic was decidedly more rare in couples in which I was able to identify one of the members as an underclassman.

This couple dynamic, however, came to an end after the meal portion. As the lights went down and increasing numbers of couples migrated to the dance floor, the connections that I previously observed rapidly dissipated. Instead of staying by their date’s side, as many couples did at semi, most attendees at the prom joined large conglomerates, usually a reflection of the social groups present in the senior class. And while these large groups tended to encompass both members of any given couple, the overall structures seemed to weaken any potentially romantic moment that a couple could have shared.

Similarly to the situation at semi, the music at prom was rather ineffective in bringing couples together. At semi, the slowdance segments were sparse and separated, occurring only three times throughout the night. At prom, slowdance segments were even more uncommon, with only two true instances of slowdancing occurring throughout the entire night. And similarly to the dynamic at semi, many couples came together for the slowdance only for the duration of the song and returned to their larger groups as soon as the song ended.

While the music choice failed to bring couples together, however, it served another purpose remarkably well: it brought great energy to the seniors. Nearly every song was instrumental in fostering the energetic atmosphere that the senior class displayed at prom. As soon as the dancing began, a record portion of those present moved onto the dance floor and began moving to the beat of the music. Looking down at the dance floor from above, I was impressed to see the majority of dancers pointing to the windows and then to the wall in response to Lil Jon’s command. And after Nicki Minaj ordered the pounding of the alarm, I noticed that not only was the alarm pounding, but the vigorous dancing was literally causing the floor beneath my feet to shake.

In some ways, it was disappointing that the connections between couples seemed to dissolve with the onset of the dancing segment of the event. But in many more ways, the sheer energy that the senior prom managed to harness on the dance floor was impressive in its own right. Prom certainly reflected the idea of going out with a bang far more than it did bonding between guests and their dates.

A few years down the line, seniors may not remember how they felt about their date to prom, but in all respects, the time they had that night will be forever memorable.

Four track and field athletes attended nationals in Greensboro, North Carolina Saturday afternoon.

The athletes are: junior Ryan Kim, competing in shot put; senior Jung Park, competing in the 110 meter hurdle; freshman Lizzie Walkes, running in the freshman 100-meter dash, and freshman Rebecca Grusky racing in the freshman mile.

Athletes left Friday and will be returning Sunday. This week, they have been concentrating on remaining calm and focusing to make last minute adjustments.

“I have been trying to fix the last part of my rotation when I release the shot ever since the beginning of this week,” Kim said.

After finishing fifth in the 55-meter hurdles at nationals in the winter, this is Park’s last chance to win.

“Since this is going to be my last and one of the most important races in my high school career, I am going to work on fully recovering from my past injuries and resting my body enough so that I will be in my best condition to run,” Park said.

Park believes that he still has something to prove.

“When I qualified for Emerging Elite Nationals last year indoor, I was disqualified from false starting,” Park said.  “Since I miraculously got an All-American title, representing top 6 in the nation at Indoor National Championship this year, I am also hoping to get an All-American title outdoor as well.”

Despite high expectations, the athletes don’t take this chance for granted, recognizing the competition they will face.

“Nationals is not where I go to win but to get the feeling of a high level meet where most of the people I compete with are better than me,”  Kim said.

“Going to this meet mean a lot to me,” said Park.

Newton South and many other schools in Massachusetts now have another athletic team as the MIAA recently reinstated boys’ gymnastics as a varsity sport.

South gymnasts and fellow athletes say they are very happy about the announcement.

“I think it’s the right decision because taking away gymnastics takes away an amazing sport and devastates many young athletes,” Dashti said.

This past winter, the MIAA announced that boys’ gymnastics would no longer officially be a varsity sport because of the dwindling amount of student that participated in the sport.

After the announcement, many athletes from South and other schools expressed opposition.

Back in February, South gymnast and junior captain Khashayar Dashti noted that the decision made by the MIAA was “hasty and unnecessary.”

The proposal to bring the sport back was immediately brought to the MIAA’s attention by calls, letters, a Facebook page and signed petition sheets by South gymnasts.  Because of the strong opposition, the MIAA reconsidered the option of having boys’ gymnastics as a varsity sport.  The MIAA voted the sport back with an uncontested 13-0 vote.

“We worked very hard by making petitions,” gymnast and sophomore Tomer Keren said. “It feels very good to know that our hard work paid off.”

“What caused them to reverse their decision was our initiative as a team,” Dashti said.

South gymnasts believe it is the right course of action to bring the sport back.

Keren agrees with Dashti.

“Reinstating gymnastics as an official varsity sport means everything for the South team and all of the other teams that participate in the sport,” Keren said.

Dashti believes the level of commitment will rise next year as the team faces formidable competitors such as Burlington and Andover.

The team is ready for the upcoming season and is excited to be able to perform their sport, according to Keren and Dashti.

When Jeff Knoedler decided to step down from his position as Fine and Performing Arts Department head to go back to teaching, the role was given to art teacher Megan Crist.

Crist is overjoyed to take on a new role of responsibility in the school.

“I passionately believe that arts are a big part of education,” Crist said. “I get into education for my students, and it is important to me that we work together.”

While this new position necessitates many things, Crist feels her most important duty is spreading the influence of art as much as possible.

Even though she specializes in fine arts, Crist feels that she will still be able to respond to the performing arts side of the job–the area wherein Knoedler had his specialty–effectively.

“I think it’s very important as a teacher to push out of the comfort zone and to find new challenges,” Crist said.

Crist has many ideas for the future of Newton South’s arts department. Although this opportunity overjoys her, she said, she realizes that it also calls for her to give up some things she does now.

“I want to continue to focus on students and to support arts, but a con to all of this is that I have to lose time with them,” Crist said. “[The] good news is that I keep teaching and I can also now make arts more accessible; bad news is that there is a lot for paperwork.”

Many students from Crist’s art classes are happy to have her as the new department head, finding her inspirational because of her unrelenting dedication.

“Her classes really guided me to pursue drawing and painting more than the other medium,” senior Sophie Veksler said. “With her gentle suggestions, and thorough but constructive critiques, she really helped me improve throughout the four years that I had her.”

Crist combines her passion for art and her passion for providing education to those who find the same love for art as she does, which is another reason students enjoy her classes and are excited that she will move on to higher responsibilities.

“I am so happy that I pursued the art courses taught by Mr. Crist for all four years at Newton South,” Veksler said. “Having her as a constant throughout the tumultuous journey was very helpful.”

It’s 95 degrees outside and the seniors are done. The only thing that’s left to do is fill up that pool on the roof and go swimming. But we still have SAT’s, we still have tests, and we still have finals. So how do we get through those last few weeks of the school year?

1. Split free blocks between lying on the grass in the sun and getting some work done. Sleep is so completely out of reach at this point in the year that going to bed even 20 minutes earlier seems like a miracle. And Vitamin D is always great. But hey, you could even do your homework outside!

2. Make sure to stock up on something that keeps you awake. Sometimes, playing a mind-numbing game on your phone can do a lot in terms of waking you up. Anything that requires your minimal focus and not any actual mental strain can do the trick and can help you stay focused in class.

3. Water is a good friend. Snacks are even better. They keep you alert and focusing on something to do without taking your focus off of the material being covered.

4. Start a countdown on your calendar. Reminders of how little you have left can help you make that last push that you need to study for that math test.

If you have any other suggestions, let me know, because I could definitely use help getting through the next three to four weeks!

South’s annual used book fair, open from May 21 to May 23 this year, raised upwards of $2,000, which is down about $500 from last year’s profits, English department head Brian Baron said.

This profit gap may be due in large part to the growing popularity of electronic reading, Baron said.

Profits were not the main goal of the sale, however.

“We’re not trying to make money,” Baron said. “We’re just trying to make it a community event where you can buy books…and we’re not trying to make it expensive.”

Parents Bonnie Barber and Suzanne Freudberg organized this year’s event.

Books were sold at the fair at the cost of $1 per paperback and $2 per hardcover. On the last day of the sale, customers were able to purchase one bag of books for only $5.

“It’s not about the money—we want it to be a garage sale, a cheap thing.”

Baron points to two reasons the sale benefits the school community, that he sees as incentives to continue hosting the sale in the future.

“First, [the sale] raises a little bit of money that we can use for literacy programs. We used it to buy materials for a reading test—a diagnostic reading test—for all the ninth graders,” he said. “The other real reason is that it’s just a big community thing.”

New copies of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, this summer’s One School One Book choice, also sold for $10 apiece, with 178 copies sold.

The annual sale in the Wheeler Commons, Baron said, will take place again next year as its benefits to the South community are too large to pass up on.

“[The used book sale] brings everybody together,” Baron said. “Everybody loves books, we can talk about them, and it’s just a nice vibe [for] the school that week.”

If guidance counselors teach a religion, it is called Naviance.

And most of South’s juniors and seniors follow it. ­­­­­­­­­­­

As a junior, I know all about it and how it will supposedly shape my future. Naviance is a program meant to help you plan for college: it gives you your chances of being accepted into certain universities, it allows you to search for careers and programs, and it helps you organize your college information.

Although the organizing aspect of it can come in handy, most students use it several hours a day simply to search up graphs that will inform them whether they can get into their dream schools or not.

This strategy may seem a practical one in terms of planning for the future, but it only increases the bucket loads of stress we students feel already. That is true especially in schools like Newton South, where the average is high and can easily make one feel that safe schools are the only option, those higher schools drowned in too many red X’s to be worth a chance.

The problem with Naviance is that the acceptance process is no mathematical one, and we students are more than the red circle where our SAT score and GPA meet.

Although SAT score and GPA are very important factors in determining where one’s odds lie, they in no way tell you the whole story. Colleges look for many other factors as well—a student may be accepted to a prestigious school because he or she will play for a sports team there. Or one of those many students at South taking several extracurriculars may see that various things like community service and leadership roles give him or her a boost.

SAT II scores, AP classes, clubs and activities out of school, contests and programs, internships—none of these are included in Naviance. Though all of them could help raise a student who is below the average, they are ignored, and thus students who may be fit for a school are discouraged from it.

All this is especially true as many schools begin to count less and less on SAT scores. Some colleges do not look at them at all. Take Sarah Lawrence in New York, for example. This university does not require its applicants to submit SAT scores. Yet on Naviance your chances of acceptance are still based on them.

Now, I do not deny that finding out your range of options for colleges is a useful thing—it is necessary to know that some colleges are too much of a reach sometimes, and that one should look at a different level.

But this information can be discerned through talks with guidance counselors and teachers, instead of the impersonal and incomplete Naviance they point you to. They possess all this information, and are able to make a more rounded judgement that includes other factors: including your extracurriculars and other exams or classes.

I looked at Naviance a few times, I must admit. I searched up some colleges I was interested in, the ones in the nearby area so full of various triangles and circles (I advise you not to look up Umass Amherst unless you want to hurt your eyes) that I discerned nothing useful from them except that maybe going to college is too stressful of a thing after all.

Other ones I looked up, like the University of Edinburgh, had no other South students as applicants, and so I was happy but not helped when I saw my single red circle.

Overall, I came out feeling more tense than when I had come in. Seeing certain future dreams diminish is slightly addicting, though, and so I spent an unhappy hour searching universities. But as anyone who has been through it can tell you, colleges follow no formula and fluctuate yearly in what they search for in students.

And, though Naviance can occasionally be used as a tool, it can just as easily dissuade one from applying to the universities one wants, universities that are more possible than its graphs suggest.

As of now, I have decided to shut that tab and remember that I am more than a circle that lies near green triangles or red Xs.