SWAMPSCOTT – Two students were praised and awarded for their academic excellence at the school committee meeting Thursday.
Pamela R.H. Angelakis, the Superintendent of Swampscott Public Schools gave the 2022-2023 Certificate for Academic Excellence to Samantha Andrews and was praised as a Commended Student in the National Merit Scholarship program.
Andrews is an impressive, dynamic, and talented young woman whose accomplishments span from the classroom to the community, according to Angelakis. Samantha is the number one student in her class with an unprecedented grade point. She has excelled in the most rigorous courses we offer in every subject, including ten AP courses.
Her greatest love is science, and she plans to be a neuroscience major in college. She will pursue a career in medicine to become a doctor. To further her experience in the field, she was a research intern this past summer at University of California Riverside in the Bourns College of Engineering. In that position, she conducted organic and electrochemical experiments in Dr. Valentine Vullev’s lab to develop bio-inspired solar systems and is listed as co-author on a paper being published. Through all facets of her activities, Andrews is a leader and role model for her classmates.
Jad Oubala was also praised as a Commended Student in the National Merit Scholarship program. That means that Oubala and Andrews’s high Selection Index scores place them among the top 50,000 students who entered the 2023 National Merit Program by taking the 2021 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT).
They are among roughly 34,000 Commended Students nationwide who have shown exceptional academic promise, according to Dennis Kohut, Principal of Swampscott High School.
Although they are no longer eligible to continue in the National Merit Scholarship Competition, their performance on the qualifying test was outstanding and recognition as a Commended Student is a credit to themselves, to their parents and the school.
Both of them have not decided where to pursue college, both stated that they are considered a mixture of in-state and out-of-state universities. While Andrews loves Neuroscience, biomedical engineering is what Oubala is interested in pursuing.
Sylvia Chen can be reached at [email protected]
