BEST OF THE BEST AREA SCHOLARS TOPS IN STATE.Byline: Harrison Sheppard Staff Writer NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Academic powerhouse North Hollywood High School notched yet another victory on its long belt of academic honors Tuesday when two of its students were named the state's top Advanced Placement Scholars. North Hollywood grads Nina Han 1 River of S China, 210 mi (338 km) long, rising in W Fujian prov. and flowing S through Guangdong prov. to the South China Sea at Shantou; navigable for about 100 mi (160 km) upstream. The densely populated delta is a rich agricultural area; two crops of rice are grown annually. Manganese and tungsten are mined in the upper valley. 2 River of central China, c.700 mi (1,130 km) long, rising in SW Shaanxi prov. and flowing E between the Qinling and the Daba mts. and Tyler Rubin were named the top male and female AP AP - Access Point AP - Accounts Payable AP - Associate Professor AP - Associated Press AP - Ability Points (roleplaying games) AP - Absolute Power (movie) AP - Academic Press AP - Academic Pressure AP - Academic Proficiency AP - Academic Psychiatry (journal) AP - Academy of Peridontology AP - Access Panel AP - Access Permit AP - Access Permittee (TV and radio broadcasting) AP - Access Port AP - Access Provider AP - Access Proxy State Scholars for California, qualifying by earning the highest average grades on their AP exams last May. Rubin took 22 AP exams, getting scores of 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale on all but two tests, while Han took 20 exams. Han, who was captain of the school's Science Bowl team last year, is now a freshman at Yale University. Rubin, who was also among the nation's top AP scholars in his junior year, is in his first year at Harvard. ``It is quite an honor actually,'' Rubin said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his dorm. ``It's good to see that they're recognizing hard work and I'm glad that my friend Nina won the other one.'' The school attracts top students from throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District to its Highly Gifted Magnet program, the only one in the district. It had a total of 130 students that were named AP Scholars. Of them, 22 qualified for the National AP Scholar Award, while the others were named either AP Scholar with Distinction, AP Scholar with Honor or AP Scholar. Nationwide, about 13 percent of the 700,000 students who took AP exams in May earned one of the distinctions. ``We're all nerds NERDS - New England Robotics Designers NERDS - New England Rubbish Deconstruction Society (American team competing in Scrapheap Challange Junkyard Wars) NERDS - Non Euclidean Ring Data Scrambler (cryptosystem) A Nerd, or What? Alan Freedman, the primary writer of this Encyclopedia, was a pretty nerdy guy in the early days of his career. Shown here in 1962 with his plugboard and wiring rack, he was one of the lucky ones. He had an office.  Four Decades Later Along the way, Freedman developed many social skills, although still loving technology and a nerd at heart. here,'' said senior Danielle Shin, 16, who earned a National AP Scholar Award, laughing. ``I don't worry about getting labeled. It's more abnormal if you're not a nerd.'' Another award winner, senior Jeff Zira - who said he has memorized pi to 101 digits - feigns a laid-back attitude, saying he doesn't do much studying or homework. ``I don't do much,'' he said. ``I study more for science than other classes. I don't know - I just absorb stuff sometimes. Sometimes I get lazy and don't do my homework.'' That's hard to believe, however, considering he took 10 AP exams, scoring a 4 or 5 on all of them, and is taking five AP classes this year. Zira, 17, of Sherman Oaks, hopes to attend Caltech, or the University of California at Berkeley or UC-Santa Barbara to study physics or chemistry. Eileen Doctorow, the school's college counselor, said North Hollywood tries to push students to do their best. ``We have always encouraged any student who wants to challenge him or herself to take the most rigorous program they can,'' Doctorow said. Senior Anna North, 17, said the difficult classes and her full extracurricular schedule don't allow for much free time. North, who scored 5s on all nine AP exams she took, hopes to become a novelist someday and has a list of a half-dozen top-notch schools she plans to apply to, including Stanford and Harvard. She also plays the mellophone in the marching band. ``You get used to working hard,'' said North, a Valley Village resident. ``Any free time or weekends, you talk to your friends and you do work. That's about it. You can't have any down time.'' CAPTION(S): 3 photos Photo: (1 -- color) HAN (2 -- color) RUBIN (3) From left, North Hollywood High's Michael Nagle, Jeff Zira, Anna North, Danielle Shin and Nuria Santamaria are among the school's Advanced Placement Scholars. Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer |
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