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Cottonwood High has a history of developing elite Advanced Placement students, a place where hard-working teens are given the tools to score high on difficult AP final exams and earn college credits.
Seniors Uyen-Phuong Nguyen, of Salt Lake City, and Luke Hsiao, of Taylorsville, have taken full advantage of their school's offerings. Both students won the prestigious Siemens Award for Advanced Placement. Each year, two students from each state win a $2,000 scholarship for earning the greatest number of perfect scores on AP science and math tests.
This year, the winners are close friends (and academic competitors) who attend the same school.
"I had been eyeing the award for quite some time," Nguyen said. "I really didn't think I was good enough. I always imagined some super-genius elsewhere from another school being the one to receive it."
Nguyen -- her first and last names are pronounced "win," as in a "win-win situation" -- was "totally shocked, floored, honored." She was sick and her throat was sore when she learned she had won, but that didn't stop her from jumping up and down and screaming.
Both students gave much of the credit to their teachers.
"You really leave a class learning," said Hsiao of his AP teachers at Cottonwood High. "You remember the material. You know the students in the class are serious about learning as well."
AP chemistry and biology teacher Dennis Hummer taught both students in his honors chemistry class. He watched them compete to earn the highest scores all year.
"It helped them become better students," Hummer said of the friends. "They really worked extra hard on their assignments to outperform one another."
Nguyen said both she and Hsiao are competitive by nature.
"We kind of push each other to be better," she said. "It's nothing like, 'Oh, I need to beat you or sabotage your efforts.' It's more like, 'Hey, buddy, you're not quite up to par. Let's give you a hand.'"
By most standards, both students are far better than par. To qualify for a Siemens Award, students must earn a perfect score of 5 (3 is passing) on at least two AP science or math tests. Hsiao piled up five 5s in science classes and earned another 5 in AP Calculus. Nguyen also got five 5s.
Nguyen was accepted to Stanford, and Hsiao got into the University of California, Berkeley. They'll likely attend the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, respectively, for financial reasons.
While some seniors choose to coast to the finish line as their high school careers wind down, Nguyen and Hsiao opted to sprint. Both students are carrying a boatload of AP courses their senior year. Hsiao is currently enrolled in four AP classes, and Hsiao is taking AP English, AP European History, AP Comparative Government, AP U.S. Government and AP Statistics.
"In my opinion, it's excessive for most students," Hummer said. "For most students, I don't recommend it. I think three AP classes is probably a very heavy load for most students."
Nguyen and Hsiao, future engineers, pull it off because they're "exceptional time managers," Hummer said.
Hsiao, who is also Cottonwood's National Honor Society president and a member of the tennis team, explained how he does it all. It's actually quite simple.
"I pay attention in class," said Hsiao, who also does a "focused two hours of homework" every night.
"Cramming is no good," he said.