Four of the students are West Hartford residents.

Submitted by Michelle M. Murphy, Director of Communications & Marketing, Kingswood Oxford School

Nine seniors from Kingswood Oxford were named National Merit Commended Students; (seated, from left to right): Cole Adams, Ava Tankala, Lina Volin. (Standing, from left to right): Ryan Wetsman, Dan Melody, Katie Smith, Jacob Tvaronaitis, Robert Scappaticci, and Ben Burke. Submitted photo.

Nine seniors from Kingswood Oxford School have been named National Merit Commended students based on the outstanding performances on the PSATs they took when they were juniors.

These are in addition to Julianne DeAngelo ’15, who was named a National Merit Semifinalist earlier this Fall.

The Commended students, who represent 10% of the Class of ’15, scored among the top 5% of the 1.5 million students who took the PSAT/NMSQT exam in October 2013. These students are:

• Cole Adams, son of Garth and Sonya Adams of West Hartford
• Benjamin Burke, son of Christopher Burke and René Joanis-Burke of Wethersfield
• Daniel Melody, son of Douglas and Eileen Melody of West Hartford
• Robert Scappaticci, son of Antonio and Bonnie Scappaticci of Bristol
• Katherine Smith, daughter of Robert Smith of Hartford and Joan Gigstad of West Hartford
• Avantika Tankala, daughter of Kanishka Tankala and Sudha Swaminathan of South Windsor
• Jacob Tvaronaitis, son of Robert and Deborah Tvaronaitis of Rocky Hill
• Lina Volin, daughter of John and Valeria Volin of Glastonbury
• Ryan Wetsman, son of David and Lori Wetsman of West Hartford

“We are so proud of these outstanding students, not only for their exceptional performance on standardized tests, but also for all the other ways in which they enrich the KO community,” said Natalie Demers, KO’s Assistant Head of School for Academic Life.