By AMY DAVIS
The Progress
A group of three Virgin Valley High School students have earned academic honors from the College Board National Recognition Programs. This puts these local kids at the top of more than 180,000 students from all 50 states who were eligible to apply for the College Board. Only 62,000 of them nationwide are awarded the honor. Three of that elite group are VVHS sophomores Rodrigo Quintero, Caiden Jones, and Marcos Moreno Cervantes.
The hard work of these three students to prepare for college has paid off with these honors from the College Board’s National Recognition Programs. This award will set them apart from other college and scholarship applicants.
The College Board awards academic honors to underrepresented students with academic honors that can be included on college and scholarship applications. It also connects students with universities across the country. This helps those students stand out and meaningfully connect to colleges during the admissions process. Colleges and scholarship programs actually look for students awarded National African American, Hispanic, Indigenous and/or Rural/Small Town Recognition through College Board’s Student Search Service. While this is not a scholarship program, students can include this academic honor in their college and scholarship applications.
“We’re thrilled that our students have earned this recognition,” said VVHS School Counselor Angela Leavitt. “We are very proud of them for their achievements in their classrooms and on College Board assessments. I wish these awards came with scholarships and I just want everyone to know how hard these kids worked for this and how proud we are of them.”
While Quintero felt honored to receive the award, he was also a little shocked.
“I definitely didn’t expect it!” he said. “I really didn’t think I had done that well.”
Cervantes was similarly happy and yet still surprised with his achievement. “I’m honored to get this award,” he said. “I would never have expected to receive this type of academic success.”
Jones agreed. “It’s pretty cool and a great honor,” he said. “Hopefully it helps me get into college.”
Students who may be eligible to be awarded academic honors from College Board National Recognition have a GPA of 3.5 or higher and have scored in the top 10% on the PSAT/NMSQT or PSAT 10 or earned a score of 3 or higher on two or more AP Exams; and are African American or Black, Hispanic American or Latino, Indigenous, and/or attend school in a rural area or small town. The application is open to current sophomores in the class of 2024 and current juniors in the class of 2023.
VVHS is proud to congratulate Rodrigo, Caiden and Marcos on their academic honors from College Board National Recognition. These boys have a bright future ahead of them.
