Discus Award Winner
Winners Gallery
PHOTOS
Sarine Shahmirian
12th Grade, CA
ATTRIBUTES
Academics
I have taken the most rigorous curriculum at my high school since the ninth grade, including more honors-level and Advanced Placement (AP) courses than anyone else in my graduating class. I have received A's in every single one of my classes so far and have the highest cumulative GPA in my grade, 4.67 (weighted). I was also honored as "Outstanding Math and French Student of the Year" at my high school for the past three years in a row. I received a score of 5 on all except one of my AP exams (U.S. History, on which I scored a 4). I am a Laureate Honors-student. Due to my excellent achievement on the PSAT, I was awarded the title of National Merit Commended Student. I have also received a high composite score of 35 on my ACT.
Arts
I have competed in classical piano performance for the past ten years. I was awarded with high honors at the Music Teachers’ Association of California (MTAC) Glendale Branch Contemporary and Bach Festivals in 2007 and 2008. Additionally, I was named the 1st place and “Most Promising Young Pianist” award winner in the Armenian Allied Arts Association’s (AAAA) Annual Music Competition in the years 2003, 2004, and 2006. I have been an MTAC Certificate of Merit Honors student for the last nine years in a row. Evaluators/judges have given my performances great comments: “Technically advanced for her age…demonstrated a marvelous depth of stylistic understanding…extremely impressive” (referring to
Other Achievements
I was accepted to the Southern California Academy of Sciences (SCAS) and awarded a research grant to work at an organic chemistry lab at California State University, Northridge. I was chosen as a delegate of SCAS to the American Junior Academy of Sciences (AJAS) national conference in February 2010. Last August, I presented my research at the AAAS Pacific Division meeting and received “First Place” in the Biochemistry section and the division-wide “Presidents’ Award” for best paper, although I was the only high school student competing against many university students and post-docs. I was recently named a Finalist of the Intel Science Talent Search 2010.
