High School Senior Receives Siemens Award

Iris Ahronowitz, a 17-year-old senior at the North Hollywood High School highly gifted magnet program, has become one of only four students in the West and 25 nationwide to receive a Siemens Award for Advanced Placement.

The award is based on cumulative achievement test scores in math and science, and carries a $3,000 college scholarship.

Ahronowitz has earned a 5--the highest score possible--on each of the 10 Advanced Placement tests she has taken since the eighth grade.

Ahronowitz, who lives in North Hollywood with her parents, David, an engineer, and Shani, an accountant, and her sister, said she often studies up to five hours a day while sleeping only five hours on school nights.

Besides taking a load of six Advanced Placement courses, she is vice president of the Interact Community Service Club and belongs to the school’s Science Bowl team, which placed second among 48 teams during this year’s national competition.

This past summer she interned at Massachusetts General Hospital, studying a rare disease of the nervous system.

Ahronowitz said the first 5 she received on an advanced placement test--in the eighth grade--gave her the confidence to keep taking more of the exams, and to keep striving for greater challenges.

“It showed me I was capable of doing this. Since then I’ve never looked back,” she said. “I worked hard on every single one. I’m not some genius. I worked hard. It paid off.”