The future is bright in Greater Gainesville, and success stories are happening every day inside the walls of local schools. Here are a few examples of talented students dedicated to learning and creativity in the Greater Gainesville area.
Leadership
Three Alachua County Public School students have been named finalists in the annual Coca-Cola Scholars Program, which awards scholarships to high school seniors based on their academic success, leadership and service to their schools and communities. The students are now running to become Coca-Cola Scholars, each awarded $20,000 in college scholarships.
More than 91,000 students nationwide applied for the program. Isabelle Tseng and Sophia Vernon of Buchholz High School and Akash Verma of Eastside High School are among just 1,557 chosen as semifinalists.
Entrepreneurs
Buchholz High School students from the Academy of Entrepreneurship recently attended the Florida DECA Emerging Leaders Conference in St. Petersburg. They networked with 333 fellow DECA members, engaged in workshops on public speaking, teamwork and delivering an elevator pitch for a unique product.
Altogether, 43 Buchholz Academy of Entrepreneurship students participated in the conference.
Sing On
Eight students from Wiles Elementary School have been selected as Florida All-State chorus and Orff musicians this year. They will be performing in the Tampa Convention Center early next year.
National Merit Rockstars
A record number of Alachua County Public School students have been named semifinalists in the 2023 National Merit Scholarship program.
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation recently released the list of semifinalists in the prestigious program. It includes 45 ACPS students, up from 41 last year. It’s the highest number in the district’s history.
Semifinalists represent less than 1% of high school seniors in the nation
To qualify, students must earn among the nation’s highest scores on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. About 1.5 million students take the exam annually. About 16,000 are named semifinalists.
Buchholz High School has 26 semifinalists in this year’s program. Eastside High has 11, and Gainesville High has eight. Students will learn in early spring if they have reached finalist status. Finalists are eligible for thousands of dollars in scholarships provided by businesses, colleges, universities and other organizations.
The ACPS semifinalists are:
Buchholz High School: Himal Bamzai-Wokhlu, Avery Bernstein, Hannah Ciupe, Samuel Cohen, Nicholas Dang, Rishi Gadikota, Angela Gao, Tyler Holland, Nia Jobson, Ahan Mishra, Andrey Nikitin, Aditya Vardhan Pasumarti, Abhinav Pothuri, Nicole Qian, McKayla Ro, Maximilian Schentrup, Tucker Shea, Anwyn Tanner, Isabelle Tseng, Zachary Urbine, Sophia Vernon, Zach Xiao, William Xu, Carolynn Zhao, Jonathan Zheng, Kevin Zhen
Eastside High School: Maryanne Armstrong, Rebekah George, Jakob Gorham, Claire Kuntz, Elizabeth Matthias, Linda Mentz, Maya O’Dell, Hirbod Sargeran, Maui Schwartz, Maggie Yan, Benjamin Zou
Gainesville High School: Harold Bishop, Jacob Callaway, Cormac Davis, Michelle Han, Nicholas Hirsch, Siya Patel, Jake Qiu, Charles Ye
Congratulations to these students and to all students in Greater Gainesville who strive for success daily.
By Meredith Biesinger.