For three seniors, the Honors Assembly in January had a little bit of added anticipation, as they hoped that they were in the running for some of the school’s most prestigious awards. When the names of these students were announced, the crowd of students, faculty, and parents erupted in cheers. St. Pius X’s Valedictorian is Abigail Gregory, the Salutatorian is Elliott Seng, and the STAR Student is Howard Burton, who named Mr. Ian Labreck as his STAR Teacher.
All three went into the assembly hopeful that they might just be the ones to receive their respective awards.
“I was kind of hoping that I might get it, but I didn’t know, and that was kind of stressing me out. I was sitting next to Rylee [Tozier], and I was shaking really badly because I was so nervous,” Seng said.
Gregory, however, was sort of tipped off that she might be receiving one of the awards when she saw that her dad was present for the assembly.
“I remember kind of wondering about it when I got to the Honors Assembly because my dad was there. He lives about five hours away, so that was abnormal. I already knew it was a possibility, so once they announced Elliott as Salutatorian, I knew it was me,” she said.
Gregory also added that being the Valedictorian was never the end goal for her, and she just focused on doing well in her classes and enjoying learning.
“I think it’s important to take every opportunity you have to learn and improve,” she said. “Like doing test corrections, going in to see teachers and ask for help, and genuinely trying to understand and learn. I’m a huge procrastinator, but finding a sort of balance between school and fun helps a lot. And though this doesn’t always work, I try to genuinely enjoy learning.”
Despite not going into the process with the intent to become STAR Student, the student with the highest SAT score who is also in the top 10% of their class. Burton worked really hard to prepare for the SAT and improve his score as much as possible. Burton also chose Labreck as his STAR teacher; the STAR teacher is the teacher who has had the most influence on the STAR student’s high school success.
“I just wanted to earn a competitive score for college applications. For an entire summer, I would complete one SAT section every day or two, and review any answers that I got wrong with my dad. The week before test day, I would do full-length and timed practice tests,” he explained.
Salutatorian was not the goal for Seng… Notre Dame was. Notre Dame has been Seng’s dream school for her entire life and she said that her grades are a reflection of her desire to attend.
“I didn’t really come to Pius with that as a goal in mind. I mostly had a goal of getting into Notre Dame, and just I wanted to push myself to my own limits. So being Salutatorian was kind of like an indirect result of what I’ve been working towards. It means a lot to me because it feels like an acknowledgment of how much work I’ve put into my grades,” she said.
Seng is heading off to Notre Dame to major in finance, Burton going to Georgia Tech to major in mechanical engineering, and Gregory is going to McGill to major in Biology. But before they go they each had a bit of advice for the underclassmen.
“Just keep on working. It may take a few tries to get a score that you like. It took until my third [SAT] test to get a score that I was comfortable with. If you score low the first time, register for another test, put your head down, and keep grinding,” Burton said.
“Mostly though I would prioritize doing what actually interests you,” said Gregory, “Focusing too much on grades is just not good for your mental health, and school is no fun if you do that.”
And finally, Seng said, “do your homework, because it all starts from there. If you start just not learning how to do things and skipping over things, you miss those little details that come up later. Remember what you’ve been working on and pay attention in class, even when it’s really hard. Because in the end all this stress was worth it.”
Congratulations and good luck to these exceptional students!
