There are only two U.S. Presidential Scholars in Mass.; one is at AMSA

MARLBOROUGH — Aryan Kumar did very well on the SATs, and has a high GPA. He has also taken several Advanced Placement courses and performed well in extra-curricular activities.

But while those achievements are impressive, the senior at Advanced Math and Science Academy doesn't think any of them is the key reason he was selected as a U.S. Presidential Scholar — one of just two students from Massachusetts, and 161 nationwide, to be picked for the prestigious honor.

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So what was Kumar’s secret skill? He thinks it might simply have been his ability to send emails.

Email allowed Kumar to start a program that provided thousands of dental hygiene products to poor residents in rural India. And it allowed him, even as a high school student, to assist Ph.D. candidates in their research projects.

After learning about how many people in India have only a minimal understanding of oral hygiene, Kumar said he worked with programs in the country to help teach children the value of dental care and provided them with supplies that he solicited from local dentist offices.

“I emailed a lot of dentists in Central Massachusetts to see if they would donate dental floss, toothbrushes and toothpaste to help," he said. "We got around 1,000 donations, and I brought them to India and traveled a few hours outside of New Delhi to poorer villages and spoke in Hindi to teach children about these things and explained how to use them, before giving them to the kids.

"I really wanted to go back, but unfortunately the pandemic put things on hold. My ultimate goal is to set up full-time medical clinics in rural India.”

Kumar, who lives in Shrewsbury, was named a Presidential Scholar earlier this month. The award, founded in 1964, is given each year to select high school seniors who are nominated by schools throughout the world and who are U.S. citizens. Past winners include U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.

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Later this month, Kumar is expected to receive a presidential medal for the achievement.

“A high SAT score is impressive but a lot of people have that," he said. "I have a pretty high GPA, too, but I don’t think those are the separating factors. I think the separating factors for me were the extracurriculars I was a part of.”

Kumar said that as he entered high school, he sought ways to help his community. He has since founded two groups:

• Enough is Enough, which is focused on social justice and helped coordinate Black Lives Matter protests throughout central Massachusetts and now has more than 30 different chapters.

• Forgotten 32, which helps promote dental hygiene in rural villages in India.

Last summer, Kumar said he wanted to learn more about biology before deciding to pursue it as a career path. His goal was to spend the summer assisting college students on research projects. He emailed about 100 professors at nearby colleges to see if he could assist in any research that was happening over the summer.

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“I cold-emailed about 100 professors," Kumar recalled. "I got three responses — one saying no, one saying they retired, and one from Dr. Lynn Adler (from UMass Amherst). I spent a lot of time working with her and Ph.D. students on their projects, to see if I really wanted to do biology and if this was something I was cut out to do."

'Aryan embodies AMSA'

Kumar attended Floral Street School, Sherwood Middle School and Oak Middle School in Shrewsbury. He spent a month as a ninth grader at Shrewsbury High before getting off the waiting list to attend AMSA.

“Your class size at AMSA is smaller and that means more individual time with teachers, which is always awesome," Kumar said. "The academics are a lot more rigorous — I could take higher level math and science courses earlier. It’s a very different experience, but I adjusted pretty quickly and I loved my four years at the school.”

Kumar plans to pursue biology, his favorite subject, and pre-med when he starts at Washington University in St. Louis this fall. He named Robert Jekanowski (AP Biology) and Anders Lewis (AP History) as his favorite teachers at AMSA.

“Mr. J, he really helped me love the course of biology; AP Bio was my first taste of real biology, and he made the course very fun, very approachable,” Kumar said. “Dr. Lewis, I took his last course when we were still online, and he was able to make that course extremely fun when we were all on Zoom. I was always focused in his class and he was able to get the whole class to listen to everything he said.”

Lewis, who is also assistant executive director at the school, said Kumar embodies the core values that AMSA wants to present to students.

“The entire AMSA community is so proud of Aryan's being named a 2022 Presidential Scholar," Lewis said. "He is a hardworking student who embodies AMSA's core values of integrity, excellence and community. He works hard, loves to learn and is always so kind and thoughtful. Aryan has a wonderfully bright future in front of him."

Outside the classroom and his volunteer work, Kumar enjoys playing basketball (he was a member of the school team) and enjoys following the Celtics and Patriots.

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Marlborough student Aryan Kumar named Presidential Scholar for 2022