Nineteen seniors have been selected as candidates for the year 2000 Presidential Scholars awards, one of the highest honors given to high school seniors in the United States.
The local students were selected from nearly 2.8 million high school seniors nationwide for their exceptionally high scores on the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) or the American College Testing (ACT) assessment. Nationwide, 2,610 candidates were chosen, 54 of them from Maryland.
The local candidates are:
Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School
Carleton P. Goold
Montgomery Blair High School
Elizabeth Epstein
Charitha Gowda
Susan Huang
Anne Lee
Rachana Oza
Gretchen Raff
Ashutosh Sahu
Jessica Slater
Winston Churchill High School
Maxwell Preston
Shena Turlington
Richard Montgomery High School
Kara Choi
Katherine Hare
Angela Kuttner
Emily Tai
Rachel Zurer
Walt Whitman High School
Michael Dworsky
Monika Schaeffer
Thomas S. Wootton High School
Matthew Fan In April, a panel of educators will select 500 semifinalists on the basis of their essays, self-assessments, descriptions of activities, school recommendations and school transcripts.The White House Commission on Presidential Scholars, a group of 30 citizens appointed by the president, will select the winning students from the semifinalists on the basis of superior academic and artistic achievements, leadership qualities, strong character and involvement in community and school activities. The group will choose one young man and one young woman from each state and extrastate jurisdiction; up to 20 students from the creative and performing arts and 15 students at-large. The scholars will be announced in May.
Scholars will be invited to Washington, D.C. in late June to receive the Presidential Scholars medallion at a recognition ceremony and to participate in activities with their elected representatives, educators and others in public life.
