Minuteman High School Senior Sophia Li Of Acton Is Honored

Photo Caption: Minuteman High School senior Sophia Li of Acton being presented with a plaque in honor of being selected as the school’s 2019 Outstanding Vocational Student. On stage with her at a banquet on April 11 at Mechanics Hall in Worcester celebrating all of this year’s Outstanding Vocational Students from across the state are Mr. John LaFleche, Massachusetts Association of Vocational Administrators (MAVA) President on Sophia's right, Mr. Jeffrey Riley, Massachusetts Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education on her left and behind her is Mr. Brian Cummings, Massachusetts Vocational Association (MVA) President. Photo by Michelle Roche.

Sophia Li of Acton has been selected as the 2019 Outstanding Vocational Technical Student at Minuteman High School in Lexington, where she is a senior.

She was honored for this achievement at a banquet and awards ceremony at Mechanics Hall in Worcester on April 11 along with dozens of Outstanding Vocational Technical Students from schools across Massachusetts. The award is jointly sponsored by MAVA (Massachusetts Association of Vocational Administrators) and MVA (Massachusetts Vocational Association).

Miss Li, daughter of Angela C. Li, has excelled in Minuteman’s Engineering program. Her proudest accomplishment is being president of the Girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) initiative at the school. Her enthusiasm for teaching STEM to younger girls is evident because she expanded upon Minuteman’s twice-yearly STEM camps for local middle-school girls to create a new after-school STEM program at the Clarke Middle School in Lexington.

Miss Li takes rigorous courses of study including honors, Advanced Placement, and dual-enrollment classes. Her dedication to academics is clear in that she is in top one percent of her class. She is the recipient of a John and Abigail Adams Scholarship.

Miss Li has played four years of varsity soccer, earning a Commonwealth Athletic Conference All-Star award, and she spent the past four years playing basketball, becoming a starter on the varsity team in the last two. Miss Li is also captain of the math team and a Minuteman student ambassador.

She plans on attending Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA to major in electrical engineering with an interest in computer science or robotics.

Anyone interested in applying to Minuteman High School is urged to act promptly. Applications for admission are coming in quickly due to the high level of public interest in high quality career and technical education that will be operating in the new Minuteman High School currently under construction. Please visit www.minuteman.org and go to the Admissions tab on the home page.

Minuteman is five months away from moving into a $145M facility that has been designed to support a robust college and career academy model. The academy model was adopted by staff and administration to create smaller “schools within a school” thereby promoting more personalized learning founded upon close relationships between students and teachers. The Minuteman college and career academy model integrates rigorous academics with relevant technical programming in occupational areas providing individual economic opportunity. The new facility will accommodate project-based learning across disciplines, requiring students to learn how to work on a diverse team, solve problems and think critically. These are essential 21st-century skills that students practice and apply in a variety of school-based and work-based environments.

As an accredited member of the New England Association of Schools & Colleges (NEASC), Minuteman inspires all students to attain their full potential, accelerate their learning, and become purposeful citizens in the global community.