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Light Rain Three’s company at South High
After valedictorian, pair tie for No. 2
While Mitchelle Joseph was the clear cut valedictorian for Valley Stream South High School’s class of 2012, determining the salutatorian wasn’t so easy. After calculating grade point averages to two decimal places, Mariyam Qureshi and David Li were still tied. So, the honor went to both of them.
District policy in determining class rankings is to calculate averages to the hundredth of a point, said Superintendent Dr. Bill Heidenreich, so it was only fair to name both co-salutatorians. Neither student is complaining. “It was a pleasant surprise that all three of us got something for the hard work we did and all the effort we put in,” Li said of his fellow top graduates. “I was very happy for not only me but them as well.”
Joseph, who moved to Valley Stream when she was in ninth grade, learned earlier this year from her guidance counselor that she had the top honor. “I was very excited,” she said. “I was pleasantly surprised. I was proud of myself for that.”
In the fall, she will attend Binghamton University. Joseph said he liked the campus and the financial aid and scholarships she was offered made her college choice an easy one. She plans to study Biology.
Joseph wants to be a pediatric surgeon and perform reconstructive surgery. “I come from a family of doctors,” she said, noting that her father opened up a clinic in India near her grandmother’s house. Hearing his stories, and visiting that clinic herself, convinced her that medicine was for her.
Qureshi also wants to be a doctor. She plans to be a pre-medicine major at Fordham University and wants to be a physician in a developing country. Ultimately, she would like to open up her own clinic so she can help others. “Being a physician, for me, has a lot more of a deeper meaning that just the income or the lifestyle,” she said.
She chose Fordham University because she wants to attend school in New York City, where there are a wealth of research and internship opportunities, as well as numerous hospitals to study at.
