Chang and Zeng receive highest honors for Class of 2011

Top students for class of 2011: Daryl Chang and David Zeng

The valedictorian and salutatorian of the Class of 2011 are Daryl Chang and David Zeng, respectively, according to the guidance department. Saratoga High’s highest academic awards are given to the senior students who have the two highest grade point averages spanning their entire high school careers.

“I was really surprised when I found out that I was valedictorian,” Chang said, a sentiment that Zeng echoed. “Saratoga is really high achieving. I never even thought about winning.”

According to assistant principal Brian Safine, every one of a student’s classes is taken into account in order to determine their final GPA.

“Classes like freshman year PE can determine who’s valedictorian and who’s not,” Safine said.

Because of Saratoga’s competitive nature, the guidance department found that the top students in the senior class were separated by only the smallest amounts, such as the difference between an A-plus and a flat A grade.

“[Chang] and [Zeng] were only separated by a few hundreths of a GPA point from each other and other students,” Safine said. “It’s tough for a student to set a goal from their freshman year to be valedictorian. Throughout your whole career, you have to get as many A-pluses and as little A-minuses as possible, and if you can accomplish that, it is a feat.”

The valedictorian and salutatorian are determined from the cumulative GPA points from the students’ first seven semesters. Taking this into account, according to Safine, their and many other students’ GPA points at the end of high school will probably be higher. Chang ended the seventh semester with a 4.6435 GPA point, while Zeng finished right behind with a 4.6364.

Safine also noted that 94 seniors ended their seventh semesters with a 4.00 GPA point or above, which will qualify them for very high honors or high honors.

In addition to their top grades, both Chang and Zeng participate in an impressive amount of time-consuming extracurricular activities. Outside of school, Chang volunteers at the San Jose Tech Museum and the gift shop of Good Samaritan Hospital, plays the violin in California Youth Symphony and does science research while Zeng’s activities include Saratoga High’s marching band and math club. As in their academics, both have found great success in their extracurriculars.

“I think it’s important to do things outside of school in case you are not interested in what you are learning in class,” Zeng said.

Although Zeng admitted that his interests outside of school are often more compelling than schoolwork, Chang said that his success resulted from his interest in his classes.

“Across high school, I was always learning, and I was always pretty interested in what we were learning,” Chang said. “If you like what you do, then it always comes more naturally to you.”

Despite Chang’s and Zeng’s obvious natural smarts, they agreed that even they felt stressed at times during their Saratoga careers. “All the work got pretty stressful, especially during junior year,” Chang said. “But overall, it was manageable.”

Christy Cali, Chang’s counselor, got to know Chang well over the course of his high school career and commented on his “wonderful ability to teach, as well as learn.”

“[Chang] had challenges that most students aren’t aware of, but still took the most rigorous classes and did exceptionally well,” said Cali. “However, [Chang] also took the time to teach and help others, which caused many of his classmates to always want to be in his group.”

As of late March, Zeng had not yet chosen a college to attend, while Chang decided to commit to Stanford.