District Sets Record With AP Scholar Honors
More than 290 District students were named AP scholars in 2008. Both Kennedy and Washington high schools had 136 AP Scholars, setting a new record for Iowa high schools. In addition, Jefferson High School had 22 students receive the AP Scholar award.
The national AP Scholar Award is given by The College Board (parent organization of the Advanced Placement Program and the SAT/PSAT Testing Program) to outstanding high school students for exceptional achievement on Advanced Placement exams.
Only about 18 percent of the more than 1.6 million high school students worldwide who took AP Examinations in May 2008 performed at a sufficiently high level to merit recognition.
Fatima Wagdy, daughter of Hisham and Zaidi Wagdy, Washington Class of 2008, was named a State Scholar, the award given to the top female and top male AP student in Iowa each year. Wagdy, currently a freshman at Stanford University, completed 16 AP tests while in high school, indicating that she successfully passed 16 college courses.
Students have the option at the end of the courses to take national tests in May. Those tests are administered according to strict College Board guidelines on a national test schedule. The tests are scored by readers who gather at various university locations around the United States in June. The readers include both college and university professors and high school teachers. Student exams are given a score of 1 through 5. A score of 3 or higher usually means that the student will receive some form of college credit.
The AP Scholar Award is given to students who score a 3 or higher on three or more tests. In other words, AP Scholars have successfully completed at least three college courses. The additional designation of AP Scholar with Honor goes to those students who score a 3 or higher on at least four tests and have an average score of at least 3.25 on all AP exams taken. AP Scholars with Distinction earn 3s or higher on five or more tests with an average score of 3.5 or higher on all AP tests taken.
The highest award is National AP Scholar, which is earned by an average grade of 4 or higher on a 5-point scale on all AP exams taken, and grades of 4 or higher on eight or more of these exams.
Sixteen District students received the National AP Scholar Award: Catherine Baker, Gregory Cizio, Teresa Goeddel, Adam Koch, Alan Lohff, Andrew Magner, David Naylor, Erica Solum, and Timothy Sprick from Kennedy; and Kate Baustian, Peter Gillon, Antony Hidalgo-Wohlleben, Natalie Roush, Fatima Wagdy, Katherine Walling, and Jonathan Weatherwax from Washington.
At the three District high schools, 148 of the AP Scholars received their award before their senior year of testing. These students (80 Washington, 61 Kennedy, and seven Jefferson scholars) have at least one more year to complete college-level work and possibly earn another AP Scholar Award. The other 146 earned the award after their senior year.