Valley Teen Named Top AP Scholar in U.S.

George Lee is a standout, even at a high school known nationally for its prowess in turning out Advanced Placement scholars.

George, who in June graduated first in his class from the North Hollywood High Magnet School for the Highly Gifted, is this year’s top National AP Scholar, earning the highest score among students who took more than eight Advanced Placement tests.

Students take Advanced Placement, or AP, exams in a variety of subjects during their high school years. If they pass with a score of 3 or better--out of a possible 5--they earn college credit and therefore advanced placement in their college classes.

Other U.S. students may have taken more tests overall--AP administers 31 tests in 18 subjects--but none scored as high as consistently as George, who tallied a 5 on 15 exams and a 4 on three others, according to AP officials.

In an interview Monday from his dorm room at UC Berkeley, the 17-year-old resident of Northridge quickly rattled off the nine AP tests he took in his senior year: art history, U.S. government, macro- and microeconomics, comparative government, Spanish, English literature, statistics and biology. He earned the top score of 5 on six of them and 4 on the other three.

In his junior year, he also took nine exams.

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Officials at the AP College Board in New York said students like George are unique.

“He had an extraordinarily high average, very close to a 5.0,” said Wade Curry, executive director of the AP program. “He is obviously an outstanding student who has tremendous ability and tremendous promise.”

While he said he wasn’t surprised to learn that he was the nation’s top test taker, George credited his alma mater for his success.

“A lot of this was due to my school,” he said. “They offer so many AP tests, which is great, and the teachers are very supportive. They really want the kids to do well. I think that helped me quite a bit.”

An avid bridge player and member of the high school tennis team, George said he had a pretty normal school life, in spite of the hours spent studying for the exams.

“I liked my high school years,” he said. “I didn’t think the APs were that much of a load. It takes up a lot of time, but I managed to work it into my schedule.”

As a student in the only Los Angeles Unified School District high school for highly gifted students--those with an IQ of 145 or better--George said the two- and three-hour tests were an extension of his school life.

Two of his North Hollywood magnet school classmates, Carmel Levitan, now at Stanford, and Howard Chong, also at Berkeley, joined George in the top five of the 1997 National AP Scholars.

George also was named the top boy AP State Scholar of 1997, while Carmel earned the same distinction among girls in the state.

Susan Bonoff, a North Hollywood High college counselor, called the AP tests a “full-scale event” on campus, with students in the regular high school getting into the act along with those in the magnet programs.

“It’s a big commitment here,” she said. “It’s like one degree of separation. You’re either taking an AP exam or you know someone who is taking them.”

Curry said North Hollywood has long been a top contender in the AP program, consistently delivering the largest number of national AP scholars in the top 20.

“Of the number of schools that have strong AP programs, there are only a half-dozen in the country that are testing out so many AP scholars,” he said. “That says a lot. Students can’t succeed in AP without taking some strong courses ahead of it.”

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Although George earned enough college credit with the AP exams to enter the university as a sophomore, he actually is a freshman because he hasn’t declared a major.

A major in molecular biology would take a full four years of courses, he said, but if he chooses computer science, he would graduate in less time.

George said his parents, Diane, an accountant, and Peter, an aeronautics engineer, encouraged him to succeed, but never pushed him to excel.

The oldest of three boys--brother Philip, 16, is a North Hollywood High Zoo Magnet student, and brother Kevin, 14, is a student at Granada Hills High--George said he set his sights on taking the advanced courses from the beginning of high school.

“I felt that if I had a choice between an AP course and a non-AP course, I’d choose AP, no question,” he said. “It was more challenging and it prepared me better for college.”

George will take a break from his studies at Berkeley to be honored at the annual AP convention in Chicago on Oct. 28.