By LYNETTE HAALAND, Four Points News
Vandegrift held its fifth graduation ceremony on Saturday night with 460 Viper students receiving their diplomas and turning their tassels at the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park.
“Believe me when I say when these students leave this stage tonight, the class of 2016 can and will do great things,” said Charlie Little, VHS principal.
Little spoke at the 8 p.m. commencement ceremony and shared statistics of the graduates and their accomplishments.
The average SAT score of the students in the graduating class was 1676, which is 178 points higher than the national average. The mean ACT score was 25, which is 4 points higher than national average.
The class of 2016’s average grade point average was 4.27 on a 5 scale, and the average GPA in the top 25 percent of the class was 5.13.
The class of 2016 had 40 National Merit Commended Scholars, 14 National Merit semifinalists, 13 National Merit finalists and 11 National Merit Hispanic Scholars. There were over 41 Advanced Placement scholars with 25 AP scholars with honors and 26 AP scholars of distinction, and two national AP scholars.
There were 255 students, or 55 percent of the class, who took at least one or more of the Advanced Placement exams of the total 906 exams taken. That equates to approximately 3.6 exams per student, Little said.
By the time their senior year ended, the Viper class earned a combined total of 3,052 college credit hours through the Austin Community College Early College Start program.
The new VHS graduates have been offered, accepted or will receive over $18 million in scholarship opportunities, which is a conservative estimate, Little said.
The 2016 graduates of VHS have declared they are heading to 99 institutes of higher learning.
The class has helped VHS achieve its ranking as 54th top high school in the state among 1,915 high schools. Additionally, VHS recently won its third gold medal distinction from U.S. News and World Report, Little said.
“We are proud of you,” Little said.
The Jun. 4 VHS graduation ceremony can be viewed by going to www.leanderisd.org and then going to the “Latest News” section.