Two current Gainesville High School students and two recent GHS graduates received top scores on various Cambridge exams, which are difficult college-level exams that take place in each individual subject.
Students are chosen based on the grades they receive on each exam. Junior Vicki Jung and graduates Zoe Lammers and Patrick Schanuth received Top of the USA scores in mathematics, physics and global perspectives and research, respectively.
Senior Rachel Young even earned the highest score in the world on the English language exam, as well as a Top in the USA score in biology.
Young, who wants to enter the STEM field, said while she was confident about the biology exam, she wasn’t expecting to score so high in English.
“I didn’t think it was going that well when I was actually taking the exam, so that was definitely a big surprise,” she said.
Each of the students is or was a part of GHS’s Cambridge program, an academic magnet offered across the globe for high achieving students. The program is affiliated with Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. Participating students have the chance to earn college credit from their exams and the Cambridge diploma. Jung, Young, Lammers and Schanuth were four of 175,000 students who take the Cambridge exams each year.
Cambridge coordinator Carmen Butfiloski said the program’s flexibility makes it appealing to students who want to gain experience prior to graduating high school, especially those interested in STEM fields.
“I love to see how students can tailor the program to meet their needs and their college and career plans,” she said. “They can take the courses they need and find things they’re passionate about during their high school careers.”
The school will hold a special ceremony later this year to acknowledge the other GHS students who scored highly on Cambridge exams.
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