Two Johnson County students are named Presidential Scholars

Two Johnson County teens have been named 2016 U.S. Presidential Scholars — one of the most prestigious honors a high school senior can earn.

Eighteen-year-old Nicolas Rodriguez of Olathe and 17-year-old Jenny Huang of Leawood will receive a Presidential Scholar Medallion and will be honored at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., on June 19.

The U.S. Presidential Scholar award honors 160 high school seniors from across the country for their accomplishments in academics, the arts and career and technical education fields. One male and one female are selected from each state. Additional at-large candidates are also chosen. Rodriguez and Huang were eligible to apply based on their outstanding performance on the ACT and SAT college entrance exams.

Rodriguez is a senior at Olathe Northwest High School and the first student in the school’s 13-year history to be named a U.S. Presidential Scholar. Once he told his mom and friends, his next stop was to share the good news at school.

“I came to school and told my principal and she asked me if my counselor had heard,” Rodriguez said. “I told her my counselor was in a meeting with the assistant principals, and my principal said we needed to interrupt the meeting. So she took me into the meeting and announced that I had been named a Presidential Scholar and everyone in the room started applauding.”

Rodriguez’s academic success — he scored a near-perfect 35 on his ACT and is one of the senior class valedictorians — is one of the things that made him stand out for the award, in addition to his extracurricular activities.

Rodriguez is a principal cellist in the advanced orchestra at his school and also serves as CEO of his FIRST Robotics team. Rodriguez also spends countless hours on community outreach as the robotics team works to promote Science Technology Engineering and Math — STEM — fields to younger students in the school district. He also was instrumental in getting his robotics team to participate in Relay For Life to raise money for cancer research.

In March, Rodriguez learned he was accepted to Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., where he is considering a double major in math and physics.

Between the Presidential Scholar honor and being accepted into his dream school, Rodriguez is beyond grateful for the opportunities his hard work has provided.

“Getting into MIT and receiving this award makes me feel that the hours I put into my academics and extracurricular activities really paid off,” Rodriguez said.

Years of hard work have also paid off for fellow award winner Jenny Huang. Huang, of Leawood, is a senior at Phillips Academy, a boarding school in Andover, Mass. Prior to enrolling there as a freshman, Huang attended elementary and middle school in the Blue Valley School District.

Huang became eligible for the honor after receiving a perfect score of 2400 on her SAT. But her additional activities also garnered her attention.

As a junior, Huang and three of her Phillips Academy classmates developed the social media app PraisePop. It’s designed to eliminate isolation at school by connecting users and allowing them to anonymously offer compliments, positive messages and invites to campus events.

While the app is currently only available to students at Phillips Academy, the innovation caught the attention of film producer and director Lesley Chilcott. In 2015, she featured Huang and her PraisePop co-founders in her documentary, “CodeGirl.” The film follows high school girls from around the world as they use technology to improve their communities and was shown in movie theaters and is currently showing on Netflix.

Huang also keeps busy at school by pole vaulting for the varsity track team, working as a dorm proctor and tutoring students in math. In fact, she was almost too busy to apply.

“I thought there was no chance I would win and I almost gave up on the application process,” Huang said. “I am so surprised and grateful that I won.”

Huang will attend Harvard University in the fall and is still deciding on a major. She said she’s learned a lot from the award application process.

“I think moving forward, that I have to keep working hard and keep taking risks, because you never know what will happen,” Huang said.

This story was originally published May 17, 2016 at 5:05 PM with the headline "Two Johnson County students are named Presidential Scholars."