Science Honors
Seniors from both West Windsor-Plainsboro high schools earned top awards from the Delaware Valley Science Council’s prestigious science-based competition. Held for top high school seniors from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, the season runs from September to March. Four seniors from High School North and South were chosen to represent their schools in this year’s competition. Round one of the competition was held at Temple University in October. Close to 180 seniors took two written tests in mathematics, physics, chemistry, or biology.
Julie Goswami, Thenu Chandrasekar, and Kartik Kesavabhotla, High School North seniors, were among the 42 finalists invited for interviews and an awards dinner in March. Awards for High School South students included David Koppstein, honorable mention for biology; and Kyle Viswanathan, honorable mention for chemistry.
Also at the dinner, High School North sent the most students to the finalist stage, and all three of their finalists won awards. Kartik Kesavabhotla was honored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers with a $200 award. Thenu Chandrasekar was awarded the Outstanding Achievement in Chemistry award for the highest score on the chemistry exam of all the test takers, which included a $300 award from the American Chemical Society. Julie Goswami was awarded the $1,”000 Reuben Shaw Memorial Award, the top award of the night.
High Achievers
Illean Ojeda of West Windsor, a senior at Stuart Country Day School, was selected as a National Achievement Scholarship Winner. The academic competition established by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation honors black American high school students.
Palak P. Amin, a senior at High School North, is a semifinalist in the 2004 Presidential Scholars Program. The finalists, announced in May, will include one young man and one young woman from each state. Semifinalists were selected based on SAT or ACT assessment.
Aanchal Bhatia was selected to participate in the National Student Leadership Conference, a leadership development program for close to 8,”000 students from around the world. Bhatia, a West Windsor resident, is a sophomore at High School South.
Shannon Davis of Plainsboro, a senior at High School South, recently performed in the 12th annual Honors Band Festival at Susquehanna University.
Robin Boots-Ebenfeld led a team from High School South to place second in the Certamen Competition at the College of New Jersey on Tuesday, March 9. Certamen is a competition in Latin, history, and mythology.
A Celebration of Poets
Twenty-six students from Frances McDonough’s Writer’s Clubs at Village Elementary School had their poems published in this year’s anthology, “A Celebration of Young Poets,” produced by Creative Communication. The poems, part of a nationwide contest, were selected among tens of thousands of poems judged.
Due to the selection of so many students from the school, Village School is recognized in the anthology as receiving a “Poetic Achievement Award.” This honor, given to the top 10 percent of the schools, is chosen based on the number and quality of the entries accepted. Village School will also receive a complimentary copy of the anthology.
Village School was also honored for having two of its poets, Amy Ozeki and Lauren Savage, recognized as being two of the Top 10 poets in the contest. Only ten poets in each grade division were selected. Their poems will be posted on the Creative Communication web site, www.poeticpower.com.
The students from Mrs. McDonough’s Writer’s Clubs who had their poems selected for publication include: Rutuja Ajgaonkar, Dancing Stars; Neil Bedi, Bird; Yvette Chen, Shyness; Thribhu Chevva, Fear; Jennifer Curatolo, If I Were a Snowflake; Meghan Finnegan, Flowing River; Raisha Friedman, Winter; Teresa George, Fall; Caroline Kellner, Grandma; Melissa Lichtman, Yankee’s Dugout; and Brian Litchfield, Sorrow.
Also, Diane Maa, My Brother; Avantika Mankar, Sorrow; Payal Marathe, The Dark Night; Shannon O’Conno, Sadness; Amy Ozeki, Tokyo; Sonia Pothraj, Sonia; Shanya Ranasinghe, Sadness; Lauren Savage, Loneliness; Daniel Schwartz, Serenity; Paul von Autenried, Slimy Skeletons; Julia Wainwright, If I Were the Moon; Maryann Wanjau, Happiness; Angela Xu, Butterfly; Jeffrey Yu, The Wolf in Me; and Jesse Yu, Wolf. Ashima Oza from Karen Orlovsky’s fifth grade class was selected for her poem Love.
Poetry is just one of the topics that McDonough, the language arts specialist at Village School, delves into in Writer’s Clubs. “Publishing high merit poems creates a poetic record of fears, hopes, and dreams of today’s students,” she says.
College Honors
American University: Amy Perlman and Emily Rotella, dean’s list, both of West Windsor.
Marist College: Tara Morrill, Plainsboro, dean’s list. Majoring in journalism and Spanish.
Miami University: Marisa Capps, Plainsboro; and Sara Shakin, West Windsor; dean’s list.
Rider University: West Windsor students inducted into Alpha Lambda Delta, a national honor society recognizing scholastic achievement for freshmen, include Kira Propescue and Carly Rapaport-Stein.
Susquehanna University: Amanda Weinstein of West Windsor has been elected to serve as scholarship chairperson of Kappa Delta.
