EPHS awards honors at National Scholar Recognition Breakfast

Students from Eden Prairie High School’s (EPHS) Class of 2024 and math teacher Jessica Brent were recently honored at an awards breakfast at the high school.

At the Nov. 10 event, EPHS Principal Nate Gibbs and EP Schools Superintendent Josh Swanson gave welcoming remarks to the students, families, and staff who attended the event.

Brent was then honored as this year’s Influential Educator, having been nominated by several of her computer science students.

In her speech, Brent said, “My life’s work is teaching students to be insatiable learners; along the way, I love learning from each of you. This pursuit of knowledge follows a simple formula: A) Ask questions. B) Believe in yourself. C) I don’t know what C is yet. You get to figure that out.”

She added, “It’s kind of radical, but there’s a lot of power in acknowledging what you don’t know. In this age of machine learning and vast global networks of data, our humanity is not derived from knowing but from our capacity for understanding. To re-interpret, to be skeptical, and to connect with others — that’s wisdom.”

As students move forward from high school to college to careers, Brent advised, “Shift your thinking from knowing to discovering. Less copy/paste; more Command+F. Find your purpose. Find your passions. … My hope is that you stay open to possibilities, adapt to new environments, and be brave enough to make lots of mistakes. Your resilience and your curiosity is your super-power.”

After Brent was honored, seniors Neha Karri, Caroline Larsen, and Pranav Narayanan gave speeches, then students were recognized in three categories: National Merit Semifinalists, National Merit Commended Students, and Advanced Placement (AP) Scholars with Distinction.

Influential Educators

Teachers nominated as Influential Educators by one or more National Merit and/or Advanced Placement Scholars were:

Josh Axtman, John Becker, Jessica Brent, John Buteyn, Charles Cooper, Margot Cowing, Kristen Gabel, Anne Gaston, Allison Grajkowske, Michelle Grunewald, Jenna Knutson, Jamie Lent, Kevin Luker, Mike Maas, Steve O’Toole, Bill Prem, Alyce Price, Angelique Rowell, Scott Sayles, Megan Skogstad, Carol Snyder, Kelsey Snyder, Erin Webster, Kjersten Welter, and Joseph Yun.

National Merit Semifinalist Students

National Merit Semifinalists are the highest scoring participants in each state, representing about one-half percent of the state’s juniors taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying test (PSAT/NMSQT). About 16,000 Semifinalists are named each year.

Students recognized publicly as Semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program can advance in the scholarship competition by qualifying as finalists. Only Finalists are considered for Merit Scholarships totaling more than $34 million.

The following EPHS students were recognized: Alexandra (Sasha) Allen, Yash Dagade, Rohil Garg, Neha Karri, Nikhil Kori, Sophia Lin, Pranav Narayanan, Vineel Panyala, and Brian Shi.

National Merit Commended Students

About 34,000 National Merit Scholarship Program participants are designated National Merit Commended Students. A nationally applied selection index score on the PSAT/NMSQT is used to name Commended Students without regard to state-by-state distribution. These students represent the top five percent of all juniors who take the test.

EPHS Class of 2024 Commended Students are: Leo Johnson, Madeline Kaufman, Siona Kaura, Sabreen Khanikar, Andy Killorin, Caroline Larsen, Anjali Marella, Smiraa Misra, Danny Nguyen, Pragya Rajagopalan, Kate Ropchak, Pranav Sarpamale, Lisa Thayil, and Amelia Warren.

Advanced Placement Scholars with Distinction

Advanced Placement Scholars with Distinction is an honor granted by the College Board to students in the United States who receive an average grade of at least 3.5 on all Advanced Placement exams taken, and grades of 3 or higher on five or more of these exams.

This year’s honored students were: Adriel Agam, Aden Akale, Alexandra (Sasha) Allen, Vaikunth Ananthanarayanan, Adam Anderson, Nikhill Andrew, Isabella Andrews, Adithya Balaji, Rishikesh Bharadwaj, Rylee Brazil, Maxwell Cermak, Harshan Chandrasekar, Yash Dagade, Amar Dani, Alyssa Ehler, Jessica Fang, Anneliese Farnan, Frantz Frantz, Allison Fried, Rohil Garg, Lalitha Gunthuri, Roshan Gurumurthy, Isaac Hepper, Leo Johnson, Neha Karri, Madeline Kaufman, Siona Kaura, Sabreen Khanikar, Andy Killorin, Nikhil Kori, Abhinav Koutharapu, Kate LaCombe, Caroline Larsen, Andrew Lin, Sophia Lin, Katelyn Liu, Anjali Marella, Molly McCloud, Shivangi Mohan, Ronia Mukherjee, Sahana Murthy, Pranav Narayanan, Rose Neuman, Danny Nguyen, Vineel Panyala, Owen Peterson, Pragya Rajagopalan, Aidan Rice, Kate Ropchak, Ariel Ruiz, Adam Rushdy, Pranav Sarpamale, Laura Schiveley, Joseph Seigler, Shruti Shanmugasundaram, Annabella Sheynberg, Brian Shi, Gia Shin, Aditya Srinivasula, Sophia Strehl, Aaryan Subbaiah, Lisa Thayil, Devh Thenepalli, Raiaan Virani, and Amelia Warren.