Name: Akshara Dhadda, sixth grade
School:
Accomplishment: Akshara’s score on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test qualified her for the opportunity to take the SAT as a sixth-grader; the same SAT exam that high school juniors and seniors take for college admission. Akshara's score was the highest SAT verbal score in the Lake County Talent Search, when she and other sixth-graders took the SAT on Feb. 5. Akshara's verbal score placed her in the 87th percentile; that is, her performance on the test was stronger than 87 percent of college-bound seniors nationally.
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Key to Awesomeness: Akshara is a highly motivated and self-driven young person who somehow manages to balance her many personal interests with her clear passion for academia. Akshara participates in Bharatanatyam, a classical Indian dance form, and has won an award for her Bollywood dancing. She plays the viola in her school orchestra and takes private music lessons. In her free time, she also bakes, reads, plays tennis and swims. Akshara’s mother, Shobha Dhadda, articulates, “Since kindergarten, she has shown a great interest in learning and proactively seeks out knowledge.” Akshara herself identifies a passion for reading and math. “Math is very logical and dependable; math problems almost always have one straight answer and that’s why I appreciate them. Reading, on the other hand, stretches the imagination,” Akshara states. While she does not know where she will be 10 years from now, Akshara thinks about the possibility of a career in a medical profession, due to her love of helping others combined with an interest in biology, or as a lawyer, as she always enjoys a good debate.
