We often profile athletes and performing art students for outstanding work, and now we can add exceptional academic promise to the list.

Cochrane High School's, Shanna Peper (Grade 12), has been named a Commended Student in the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program.

Recognized for her outstanding effort in the 2018 preliminary SAT test, Peper says she never dreamed she would place as high as she did. "I wrote it last year in October, and I ended up scoring in the top 34,000 out of 1.5 million people that wrote the exam. It is such an honour; I didn't even think it was possible, but here we are."

The practice SATs have both an English and math component and are broken into four sections, including reading comprehension, editing grammatical mistakes, math with a calculator, and math without a calculator. "It is quite a long test; it takes a good four hours to write."

Receiving a congratulatory word from Administration last week, Peper says she has acquired kudos from many fellow students as well as school staff. "Ms. Lyons and Ms. Kromm came into the room and said they had an announcement to make about someone who scored really, really well in the practice test last year. I was just as shocked as everyone else in the room, but what I learned after the fact was nobody else was. I knew I did well as I got the test results in November of last year, but it was a while before this award."

There is no monetary amount given to commended students, but the little piece of paper carries a big weight. "I can scan it and can put it in all of my applications, resumes, literally anywhere. It is definitely a booster including for my confidence as it is a bit of fresh air to say that I can do this. Clearly, I am smart enough to have done well on this test so I can do well on the other entrance tests I will have to write."

While not exactly sure where she wants to land entirely in the future, Peper does plan to study neuroscience. Beyond her strong academic ability, Peper is also musically gifted, part of the student senate, co-director of an upcoming theatrical play, dance captain for all school musicals, and teaches ballet weekly. "For me, I find that by doing arts, it has made me a much more well-rounded person and has made me much better at public speaking."

Tracy Lyons, Assistant Administrator of Cochrane High Scool, says this award is just another fantastic example of the school's success." This school is amazing. We hope and are always working towards finding ways for our students to excel, and then we get out of their way and will continue to do that. We hope this award is only one of many to come. When we look at the different areas of Cochrane High, whether academics, performing arts, band, or sports there are numerous students that excel, and it's so awesome to see."

Giving credit to all those have taught her, Peper says she couldn't have achieved this without them. "I give total props to all my English, math, and even science teachers. We have a wonderful staff at the school here, and it is just phenomenal. This really does reflect on Cochrane High as a whole."

All students in grades ten through twelve have an opportunity to write the practice SAT annually, before tackling the official exam.