By MOLLY DAVIDSON / Staff Writer

INDIAN SPRINGS—High school juniors and seniors across the country are preparing to take the SAT or ACT college entrance exams this winter, and this year, a group Our Lady of the Valley Catholic School seventh grade students will join them.

Sixteen OLV students were selected to take their choice of either the SAT or the ACT as part of the Duke Talent Identification Program, hosted by Duke University.

“It identifies them as an academically talented student,” OLV guidance counselor Kathleen Keelin said. “Many of them will do well enough to get into a college. Some of our students will end up placing on the state level and even on the national level.”

In order to be selected to Duke Talent Identification Program, students must score in the 95th percentile or above on their standardized tests.

“We had an unusually high number (this year),” Keelin said, noting the 16 students make up exactly half of the seventh grade class.

Results of the exams will be returned to the students and the school “some time in the spring around March or April,” Keelin explained.

“They get very excited,” Keelin said of the students. “They know it’s a prestigious academic award.”

The seventh graders chosen to participate in this year’s Duke Talent Identification Program are Lizzie Ballinger, Trey Besch, Katelyn Frey, Kirsten Hassinger, Obi Ifediba, Connor Judson, Anna Lancaster, Avery Martin, Jeffrey Martin, Elizabeth Mitchim, Chandler Norman, Peter Rauterkus, Graham Russell, Grace Spencer, and Alyce Voisin.