Four of 14 Presidential Scholar semifinalists are Madison students

Four of the 14 high school seniors recently named Presidential Scholar semifinalists from throughout Wisconsin are Madison students. No other Wisconsin high school or district had more than one student on the list.

The four are:

• Brian Lee, Memorial High School
• Adeyinka Lesi, West High School
• Melanie Rawlings, Memorial High School
• Ilari Shafer, Memorial High School

Students are chosen for the Presidential Scholars program — one of the nation's highest honors given to graduating seniors — based on exceptional performance on the ACT or SAT college admission tests. Further, application materials include essays and self-assessments.

MMSD graduates well represented among UW Medical School graduates

It was brought to our attention that there were many Madison School District graduates among this year's UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health graduates.

So we checked with the UW medical school staff and they confirmed that it indeed is true.

Seventeen of the 141 graduates in the Class of 2006 are alumni of MMSD high schools. This represents 12% of the class.

This seems significant to us, considering that the four Madison high schools are less than 1% of all Wisconsin high schools, and that the UW-Madison Medical School is renowned nationally.

Congratulations to these 17 former students, their families and all the MMSD staff who contributed to their successes.