High Five

Iris Ahronowitz says she’s no genius. Her success with standardized achievement tests might suggest otherwise.

Ahronowitz, a 17-year-old senior in the North Hollywood High School highly gifted magnet program, has earned a 5--the highest score possible--on each of the 10 advanced placement tests she has taken since the eighth grade.

She recently became one of only four students in the West and 25 nationwide to receive a Siemens Award for Advanced Placement, which is based on cumulative test scores in math and science.

The award includes a $3,000 college scholarship. She’ll fly to Washington, D.C., to attend the awards ceremony Dec. 15.

“It’s probably the best surprise I’ve ever gotten,” said Ahronowitz, who pronounces her first name EAR-iss.

The honor was less surprising to those who know her. “She has earned the respect of everyone here,” said Phyllis Spadafora, coordinator of the school’s magnet program. “She will be a terrific role model for women in science.”

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 per school night.

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.

During the past two summers, she has performed scientific research--inspired by her interest in physics and biology, as well as her mother’s admonition that “You have to do something more productive with your summers,” she said.

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.”