The School District of Elmbrook is proud to announce that 2025 Brookfield East graduate, Shilpa Kumar, has been named a U.S. Presidential Scholar for the state of Wisconsin! Kumar is the seventh Elmbrook student to be named a Presidential Scholar since 2017!
Shilpa reacted to the announcement by paying tribute to those who have supported her educational journey. "I am truly grateful to receive this distinguished honor. I want to extend my deepest thanks to my family for their tireless support, and I share this recognition with my teachers and peers at Brookfield East who made my high school years so rewarding." Kumar began her post-secondary endeavors at Duke University this Fall where she is studying Biomedical Engineering.
Out of 3.9 million graduating seniors and over 6,400 candidates who qualified for the 2025 awards, Kumar was selected as one of four students honored from Wisconsin and one of 161 Presidential Scholars chosen in the United States. Determined by outstanding performance on the College Board SAT and ACT exams, and through nominations made by Chief State School Officers, other partner recognition organizations and the National YoungArts Foundation’s nationwide YoungArts™competition, this marks the 61st class of the U.S. Presidential Scholars.
Inclusion in the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program is one of the highest honors bestowed upon graduating high school seniors. Each year, final selection of the nation’s 121 academic Presidential Scholars consists of one male and one female from each state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and from families of U.S. citizens living abroad, as well as 15 chosen at-large, 20 Scholars in the Arts and 20 Scholars in Career and Technical Education.
Presidential Scholars will each receive a Presidential Medallion and join the ranks of over 8,000 of the nation’s top-performing students through the program’s history. Recent Presidential Scholars from Elmbrook include:
- 2025 - Shilpa Kumar, Brookfield East
- 2023 - Ananya Bhatt, Brookfield Central
- 2020 - Sanju Reddy Peddagorla, Brookfield East
- 2019 - Namitha Alexander, Brookfield East
- 2018 - Julian Rhee, Brookfield East; Sophia Sun, Brookfield Central
- 2017 - Colin Gray-Hoehn, Brookfield East
For more information on the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program, please click here.
