Rondout Valley High School senior Ellis Picuri earned Commended Student status in the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program, reflecting his exceptional academic promise based on his high score on the 2022 qualifying test.

Picuri was one of 50,000 top scorers among the more than 1.3 million students who took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. While he won’t continue in the scholarship competition, he was selected from that elite group as one of just 34,000 Commended Students recognized nationwide for excellence in education.

The son of Joseph Picuri and Melissa Story of Accord, Picuri is active inside and outside the classroom, participating in extracurricular activities including the National Honor Society and Mathletes.

In addition to serving as a peer leader for the Newcomers Uplifted program at Rondout Valley, he has also been captain of both the Varsity Boys Soccer and Tennis teams. Ellis also has a passion for music and was selected to perform in the Symphony Orchestra at the 2023 Area All-State Festival. He plans to study music technology and sound engineering in college next fall.

“We are very proud of Ellis and his achievement,” said Rondout Valley High School Principal Jessica Torok. “He is a talented and remarkable student and we look forward to his future endeavors and seeing where his accomplishments take him.”