47 students named National Merit Commended Students & 7 students earn National Hispanic Scholar honors Largest number of Commended Students since 1982

Highland Park High School Principal Walter Kelly announced that 47 seniors have been named Commended Students in the 2016 National Merit Scholarship Program, the largest number since at least 1982. In addition, seven students have been named National Hispanic Scholars. The students will be honored at a special breakfast Nov. 3. 

  

"Congratulations to our National Merit Commended students and our National Hispanic Scholars!" Kelly said. "With these students and our 16 National Merit Semifinalists, this class has outperformed the national average by four times over. These students have balanced meaningful lives that include an ongoing emphasis on academic performance. We are proud of the work that this represents and look forward to observing what each of these students does next in their lives."

Commended students are:

Claire T. Addison Jack B. Arnold Evan A. Baker Ashley S. Batjer Victoria H. Batjer Julia A. Berry Sunny C. Bowden Madison K. Clement Grace C. Coleman Andie C. Dorn William M. Douglass Matthew J. Emerson Jordan J. Fox Xiaohan Gao Mark O. George Stanton L. Geyer Jake S. Gile Emily G. Henschel John R. Herrick Michael A. Hodak Caroline E. Holland Miles L. Iola Brooke A. Jennings Sabrina Jiang

Hannah J. Jurgensmeyer Nathan T. Kong Frederick Kraft Hannah R. Kupferschmid Sydnie A. LaDuke Samuel B. Lesesne Gloria Liu Andrew V. McMullen Frances Peterman Adam W. Rathjen (no longer a student at HPHS) Jack P. Renner Jeremiah R. Rothschild Iva C. Sadler Sara E. Scheffler Barton Showalter Cheyenne Son Katherine Stockum Sarah Stokum Madison M. Taylor Tyler M. Vincent Nga Vu Holly Winters Helen M. Zhang

An interesting note about this year's group of Commended students is that it contains two sets of twins.

Approximately 34,000 Commended Students throughout the nation are being recognized for their exceptional academic promise. Commended students placed among the top five percent of more than 1.5 million students who took the 2014 PSAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

In addition, the College Board National Hispanic Recognition Program identified about 5,000 of the highest-scoring students from a nationwide total of more than 250,000 high school juniors in the United States and U.S. Territories who took the PSAT/NMSQT and designated themselves as Hispanic/Latino. 

The 2016 HPHS Hispanic Scholars are:

• Nina Flores
• Mark George
• Francisco Lopez
• Frances Peterman
• Emily Singh
• Matthew Spicer
• Madison Taylor

HPISD