Half of Ohio’s Presidential Scholar semifinalists are from Cincinnati

Eleven students in the Cincinnati region have been selected as semifinalists in the prestigious U.S. Presidential Scholars Program.

Nine of the 18 semifinalists in Ohio are from Cincinnati schools. Another two students were selected from schools in Northern Kentucky.

The U.S. Presidential Scholars Program, established in 1964, recognizes the country's "most distinguished" graduating high school seniors, according to the U.S. Department of Education's website. Up to 161 students are named Presidential Scholars each year.

Walnut Hills High School senior Kasey Shao, 17, is a performing arts semifinalist. Kasey told The Enquirer she has been playing the piano for about 11 years. She said she was a "very active child growing up" and her mom introduced her to the instrument as a way to get her "to sit down and concentrate on something."

Last year, Kasey became one of 21 finalists in the National YoungArts Foundation's classical music division. She was named the gold medal winner of the division and was nominated for U.S. Presidential Scholars in the arts.

"It's one of the biggest honors (for) high school students who do both academics and music," Kasey said. "And I've been doing academics and music ever since I was 6 years old, when I started playing the piano. So my whole life has been this interdisciplinary balance between music, the arts and my academics. I'm very, very honored to be recognized for this kind of balanced work that I've been doing my whole life."

Kasey will attend Princeton University in the fall. Her Walnut Hills classmate and fellow U.S. Presidential Scholars semifinalist Shubhra Mishra is committed to Stanford University.

Shubhra moved to the U.S. from India in seventh grade. She said she's always been interested in math, research and math education. This year she is working with a professor at the University of Cincinnati, using math to model addictive behaviors in rats. The goal of this research is to develop a drug for humans that helps to reverse substance addiction.

"Finding out that I was nominated for such a prestigious program was just crazy because I'm the first in my whole extended family to even be going to school in America," she said.

Aidan Finn, a semifinalist from St. Xavier High School, says he is going to the University of Notre Dame in the fall. For now, he plans to study classics, and then possibly go on to grad school.

Aidan's mother, Judy Zitnik, said she almost threw away the letter inviting Aidan to apply for the U.S. Presidential Scholars program. All of the end-of-the-school-year and college mail starts to blend together. But then she noticed the seal from the U.S. government and realized it was "legit."