Paris High School Celebrates Students Awarded With Academic Honors From College Board National Recognition Program

Students at Paris High School earned academic honors from the College Board National Recognition Program. The programs celebrate the hard work of thousands of high school students nationwide to help them showcase their strong academic performance.

For the first time, the academic honors recognize first-generation students, in addition to rural and small-town, Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic/or Latino students. The program opens college access for more students because many institutions use the awards for recruitment.

At Paris High School, twenty-three students received the academic honor. The following students received the rural and small town award: Virginia Acosta (also received First Generation and Hispanic), Oscar Alamilla (also received First Generation and Hispanic), Gavin Avery, Catherine Biard, Anna Blassingame, Jayden Childers, Ethan Dao (also received First Generation), Benjamin Dring, Caleb Echols, Olivia Fitzgerald, Annie Gibbons, Eadward Grimes (also received First Generation and Indigenous), Isaiah Hampton (also received African American), John Hubbard, Joseph Hutchins, Luke Lassiter, Viktoria Lippincott, Lynna Martin, Katherine Mathieu, and Matthew Roland. The following students also received academic honors: Nahima Ortiz (First Generation and Hispanic), Rayne Prince (African American), and Paola Rodriguez (First Generation and Hispanic).

The criteria for eligible students include:
•GPA of 3.3 or higher.
•PSAT/NMSQT or PSAT ten assessment scores are within the top 10% of assessment takers in each state for each award program or earned a score of three or higher on two or more AP Exams by the end of tenth grade.
•Attend school in a rural area or small town, or identify as African American/Black, Hispanic American/Latino, Indigenous/Native, or a first-generation college student.
Every year, students can verify their eligibility on BigFuture® during their sophomore or junior year. At the start of the next school year, students receive awards for their communities to celebrate them and for colleges to recruit them as they head back to school in their junior or senior year.

Thousands of nonprofit colleges and organizations can use College Board’s Student Search ServiceTM to connect with awardees during recruitment and share more about their postsecondary programs.

“This year, the National Recognition Programs are recognizing more students than ever so that the outstanding academic abilities of more than 90,000 deserving students are not overlooked as they plan for their future,” said Amy Reitz, senior vice president of BigFuture at College Board. “We’re proud to support colleges and universities that are committed to supporting all students, and our program offers one way to strengthen their recruitment efforts to students that will thrive on their campus.”