About 123 Moore County public school students have been recognized in the AP Scholar program, six of whom have received the highest designation as National Scholars.

"The number of students who have been recognized this year is exceptional," said Superintendent Susan Purser. "Each one deserves to be commended not only for being recognized in the AP Scholar program but for the hard work and commitment to a quality education that they have shown throughout their school careers."

The designation of AP Scholar by The College Board is awarded to students in recognition of their exceptional achievement on the college-level Advanced Placement (AP) exams.

The College Board's Advanced Placement Program offers students the opportunity to take challenging college-level courses while still in high school, and to receive college credit, advanced placement, or both for successful performance on the AP exams.

About 18 percent of the more than one million high school students in more than 15,000 secondary schools worldwide who took AP exams performed at a sufficiently high level to merit the recognition of AP Scholar.

Students took AP exams in May 2008 after completing challenging college-level courses at their high schools. The College Board recognizes several levels of achievement based on a student's performance on AP exams.

Six Pinecrest High students received the special designation of National Scholar. To be named a National Scholar, a student must receive an average grade of at least 4 on all AP exams taken, and grades of 4 or higher on eight or more of these exams. Recognized as National Scholars were Brett Baggett, Lauren Bishop, Jared Edy, Leah Elliott, Adam McDonald and Kishan Patel.

In addition to the six students named above, 24 students qualified for the AP Scholar with Distinction Award by earning an average grade of at least 3.5 on all AP exams taken and grades of 3 or higher on five or more of these exams.

The Pinecrest students are Brenton Baer, Kristin Brock, Hanna Bustillo, Seth Flagg, Jordan Fruchte, Caleb Frye, Alexandria Hartill, Michael Hieronymus, Ashlyn Karan, David Nestor, Eric Parziale, David Pferdekamper, Bryce Pittard, Joshua Seidenberg, Laura Taylor, Stuart Thomason, Bradley Thwaites, Ryan Walsh, Samuel Ward and Sarah White.

The Union Pines High School students are Joseph Arno, Brian Hayes and Christopher Wicker. From North Moore High is Carrie Smith.