The students in the Class of 2026 were recognized at Senior Awards Night held on June 2. Heading that list were Ella Li as valedictorian and Brady Liang as salutatorian.
Li finished with a GPA of around 4.7 — a result of maintaining high grades in 14 Advanced Placement classes and five Honors classes. Some of these included challenging courses such as AP Calculus BC, AP Chemistry and AP Physics C.
The news of being named valedictorian came as a surprise to Li.
“It was a huge honor to be named valedictorian,” she said. “Although it’s been something that I had kept in the back of my mind and worked toward, I never actually imagined I would achieve it.”
To manage such a rigorous class load, she kept track of tasks, both important and menial, during her high school years. She used both to-do lists and a calendar.
“It’s also important to develop your own study habits that work for you,” Li said. “I always tried to take advantage of all of the resources available to study before tests, and it helped to do practice problems to identify my knowledge gaps and practice applying concepts.”
Li is president of the school’s Advanced Science Research Club, president of Girls Who Code and vice president of the Engineering Club. Outside of school, Li did biomedical and computer science research, placing in the top 300 of the Regeneron Science Talent Search.
Liang, with the second highest GPA, took a similar course load. Outside of school, Liang works at his internship at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey Bay.
Li is committed to Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study computer science while Liang is committed to University of California San Diego and is also studying computer science.
“I’m honored to receive the salutatorian title, and I’ll continue to maintain a positive mindset and work ethic moving forward,” Liang said.
