Nasya Choy of Conway and Rene Ramirez of Pearcy, seniors at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts, have been recognized as U.S. Presidential Scholar Candidates.
The U.S. Presidential Scholars program is considered one of the nation’s highest honors for high school students. It was established in 1964 by executive order of the president to recognize and honor some of the nation’s most distinguished graduating high school seniors.
The White House Commission on Presidential Scholars’ review committee selects honored scholars annually based on their academic success, personal characteristics, leadership, and service activities, in addition to the quality and content of their essays.
Choy and Ramirez said they were honored to be recognized for their work in the classroom.
“The selection process for the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program is highly competitive, so I am honored to be selected as a candidate alongside Rene and the other candidates in Arkansas,” Choy said. “We all worked hard for the past 12 years, and this recognition is a testament to our efforts. Hopefully, we all do well and can make it to [Washington,] D.C.!”
Choy and Ramirez were among 84 Arkansas students selected as candidates this year. Each year, more than 4,000 candidates are identified for the component of the program that focuses on academic achievement as well as having scored exceptionally well on the SAT or the ACT. Eligible students are U.S. citizens and legal permanent U.S. residents who will graduate or receive their high school diploma between January and August of the current program year and have taken the ACT or SAT assessment on or before October of the previous year.
Approximately 800 students will be named semifinalists in April after the next round of review, and up to 161 students will be recognized in May as Presidential Scholars. If a student is selected as a U.S. Presidential Scholar, they will be honored in Washington, D.C., in June. To commemorate their achievement, the Scholars are awarded the U.S. Presidential Scholars medallion at a ceremony sponsored by the White House.
Besides sharing the honor as being selected as a U.S. Presidential Scholar Candidate, both students have also already been accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for Fall 2024. They were notified by MIT in December that they had been granted early decision acceptance.
Choy said she was in the middle of an event with family and friends on the date and time that early decision notifications were scheduled to be released. She decided to check her email and found her acceptance letter.
“My first thought was, ‘I should’ve applied regular decision. Getting this on Pi Day (March 14) would’ve been awesome.’ After realizing my priorities were slightly out of order, my second thought was to excitedly show my family,” Choy said.
Ramirez said he was part of a group chat with fellow participants in MIT’s fly-in program WISE. Someone in the chat said that the school had begun sending notifications earlier than planned so he went to check the notification portal.
“I was pretty excited and in shock by the acceptance. I wasn’t really hoping for much considering it’s MIT, but seeing the confetti [an email animation] made me realize I got in,” Ramirez said.
For Ramirez, his acceptance into MIT ‘means the world to me’ as it is the culmination of effort and family support that has propelled him to success.
“First, it’s one of the best universities for most things STEM, and I know I’ll receive an extremely rigorous education and vast opportunities,” said Ramirez, who is considering studying in the computer science field while in college. “But more importantly, being accepted there as a first-generation college student means that I was able to make the most of my parents’ immigration to the U.S. and all the sacrifices they’ve made.
“I move forward knowing that I’m breaking barriers and showing my family that I’m grateful for everything they’ve done. They’ve done so much for me and my older brother, and we have both found success thanks to their support. I’m immensely proud of the both of us for that.”
While Choy, who plans to study aerospace engineering, acknowledged that she was excited about being accepted into MIT, she isn’t certain that it is the school she will attend in the fall. She’s waiting for more information to make a final decision.
“MIT is a high-ranking and well-known school, but there are more factors to choosing a college than prestige. I’m still waiting for results from scholarships and college applications so I can weigh my options carefully before I make a decision,” she said.