Two Minnetonka Students Among the Nation's Elite

So much for formal proclamations. Minnetonka High School seniors Ryan McCartan and Lili Peng learned of their rare honors through a more contemporary channel. 

“A friend sent me a text, that’s how I found out yesterday," McCartan said.

Peng too. “My friend texted me,” she said. 

McCartan and Peng are among an elite three Minnesotans named 2011 U.S. Presidential Scholars.

“It’s an unbelievable way to cap off my high school career,” said McCartan, who was designated a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. “It’s one of the biggest honors ever.”

Peng is a recent addition to the Minnetonka student body, having transferred from Pittsburgh's North Allegheny High School last summer. She plans on attending Dartmouth in the fall.

Rohit Agrawal of Wayzata High School also received the Presidential Scholar designation. 

"The U.S. Presidential Scholars exemplify what dedication to achievement and setting high standards can symbolize for all youth," U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a statement.

With the , McCartan has performed in six shows over the last four years, including a starring role "." He's earned four consecutive Hennepin Theatre Trust Spotlight Musical Theatre Awards for outstanding actor, and he plans to enter the University of Minnesota's Actor Training Program in the fall. 

“And then I’m going to move to New York and see what happens,” McCartan said. “It's really affirming that if you keep working hard and believing in yourself that good things are going to happen."

Peng said she "wants to work with human rights and women’s rights in developing countries.” It’s a career path inspired partly by Viktor E. Frankl’s "Man's Search for Meaning." That book, about the search for the meaning of love in the midst of a Nazi concentration camp, so moved Peng that she wrote an essay about it as part of her Presidential Scholars application.

“I’m still kind of in disbelief right now (but) I’m really grateful,” Peng said of the honor. “When I got (named) a semifinalist, I thought it was cool and that’s where it would end.”

Beyond literature, Peng is interested in debate, student council, volunteering and playing the piano and violin.

The 141 U.S. Presidential Scholars include one boy and girl from each state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, as well as 15 chosen at-large and 20 Presidential Scholars in the Arts.

In June, McCartan and Peng will travel to Washington, D.C. for a White House ceremony, where each will receive a Presidential Scholars medallion from President Barack Obama.

“That means that the first time I’m going to vote, I’ll be voting for someone I have met personally,” McCartan said. “It’s really cool."

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More on The U.S. Presidential Scholars Program:

• Minnesota had nine semifinalists in the 2011 U.S. Presidential Scholars Program. Three of those nine students were students at Minnetonka High School, including McCartan, Peng and Joseph P. Schiltz. Nationwide, only 560 semifinalists were named. 
• The White House Commission on Presidential Scholars, a group of eminent citizens appointed by President Obama, selected the 141 scholars. 
• The scholars are chosen based on their academic success, artistic excellence, essays, school evaluations and transcripts and community service.
• This program has honored more than 6,000 of the nation's top-performing students through the past 47 years.
• The program was created in 1964 to honor academic achievement. It was expanded in 1979 to recognize students who demonstrate exceptional talent in the visual, literary and performing arts.
• Since 1983, each Presidential Scholar has invited his or her most inspiring and challenging teacher to travel to Washington, D.C., to receive a Teacher Recognition Award from the U.S. Department of Education and to participate in the recognition events.
• The only way to be selected as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts is to be chosen first for YoungArts Week, arguably the most prestigious student artists programs in the country. McCartan was the only Minnesotan selected for that program earlier this year.