ARHS students make the grade

Published on October 06, 2006

AMHERST - Four Amherst Regional High School seniors were named National Merit semifinalists, placing them in the top 1 percent of the 1.4 million high school students nationwide who entered the National Merit Program.

In addition, 26 ARHS seniors were commended placing them in the top 5 percent of students who entered the 2007 competition.

When they were juniors, the students took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which serves as an initial screen of about 1.4 million entrants each year.

The semifinalists are: Eleanor Avrunin, Aviva Galaski, Rachel Jackson and Timothy Lambert. About 16,000 students reach the semifinalist level.

The commended students are: Jeremy Bancroft-Brown, Katharine Campbell Strauss, Eli Cohen, Laura Cox, Matthew Denny, Damien Fenske-Corbiere, Jennifer Fownes, Emily Hanno, Molly Hebert-Wilson, Sarah Higley, Denali Hussin, Alicia Kane, Eli Keene, Shinjini Kundu, Emily Kyker-Snowman, Rosa Lederer-Sabel, Amelia Lewis, Eli Moss, Alice Ndikumana, Daniel Ostendorf, Hannah Rachootin, Madeline Rooney, Allison Rubin, Varun Shetty, Daniel Stubbs and Christopher Tourloukis. About 34,000 students reach the commended level.

In addition, Alice Ndikumana is a National Achievement Scholarship Competition Semifinalist and Marita Pickron and Morgan Taggart-Hampton are National Achievement Program Outstanding Participant.