This year’s senior class will have eight students graduating with the title of Valedictorian, meaning the students completed seven semesters with a 4.0 GPA. Two other students will graduate as a Salutatorian attaining the second-place rank. 

The class of 2020’s Valedictorians are Ronan Brew, Sarah Luong, Joe Marinaro, Margaret McCaffrey, Abigail Swanson, Elizabeth Valley, William Valley, and Dominic Vogel. The Salutatorians are Kiara Herro and Maggie Murnan. “It’s a very rewarding title because I put a lot of time into school so this makes all the work worth it,” Luong said. 

This distinguished accomplishment has been awarded to students at BSM’s graduation for years, making it highly sought after. “Once I realized that it was within my reach to get all A’s, I didn’t want to get anything else but A’s,” Marinaro said.

Nothing about ending high school with a high GPA is easy, but these students have developed tactics that helped them through. “Being organized, staying on top of tests and homework, and things like that really helped,” Brew said.

Striving to become a Valedictorian and Salutatorian can come with a lot of pressure, especially as the end of high school approaches. “During junior year I felt the most pressure, and it was the hardest to keep my grades up. For senior year since everything was more relaxed, it was more difficult to stay focused which made it harder to maintain my grades,” Marinaro said.

It wasn’t always easy for these 10 students to maintain their esteemed GPA. “The only time [it was close ] was last semester. I had a 92 going into the physics final and the final moved me up to a 93,” Elizabeth Valley said.