Twenty 2003 Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) students were among the nation's top performers on the Advanced Placement (AP) exams last May.

In addition, the county number of AP Scholars, Scholars with Honors, and Scholars with Distinction continued to grow, with Scholars increasing by 259 students (to 936) over the previous year, Scholars with Honor increasing by 77 (to 476) and Scholars with Distinction increasing by 83 (to 475).

The strong performances on these stringent exams highlight the school system's continuing efforts to increase academic rigor and encourage greater numbers of students to take, and succeed in, Advanced Placement courses.

The 20 students -- eight from Montgomery Blair High School, six from Richard Montgomery High School, four from Walt Whitman High School, one from Quince Orchard High School and one from Watkins Mill High School -- were among National Advanced Placement Scholars who achieved that honor by scoring an average grade of 4 or higher on eight or more AP exams on full-year, college-level courses. Last year, MCPS had 19 national scholars.

The national scholars are:

Montgomery Blair High School: Easha Anand, Edward Chan, Joshua Chang, Evan Karlik, Lisa Leung, Anatoly Preygel, Alexander Sverdlov, Linda Xu

Richard Montgomery High School: David Benjamin, Anna Kuklova, Andrew Patterson, Daniel Tenenbaum, Xu Wang, Frances Wasser

Quince Orchard High School: Chetan Puttagunta

Walt Whitman High School: Larissa Teelucksingh, Sebastien Tilmans, Frank Washburn, Hao Wu

Watkins Mill High School: Timothy Gutmann

In addition, Bruna Campos of Walter Johnson High School was the only student to receive an International Diploma.

The College Board honored 1,887 MCPS graduates and current students from all 23 regular MCPS high schools for outstanding performance, an increase of 419 students over the previous year. In total, 475 students were designated AP Scholars with Distinction for earning an average grade of at least 3.5 on all AP exams taken and grades of 3 or higher on five or more of these exams. A total of 476 were named AP Scholars with Honor for earning an average grade of at least 3.5 on all AP exams taken and grades of 3 or higher on four or more of these exams; and 936 were named AP Scholars for earning grades of 3 or higher on three or more AP exams.

The exam grades were sent to about 3,000 colleges and universities around the country that use AP exam results to grant course credit and/or advanced placement for enrollees.