Northshore students Kristen Dahlin, Rebekah Packer and Madeline Vaught are among nearly 1,100 fifth- through eighth-graders from around the state who will be honored May 18 for their outstanding verbal and/or mathematical abilities by the University of Washington at an award recognition ceremony.

The students’ academic achievements were discovered through the Washington Search for Young Scholars operated by the UW’s Halbert and Nancy Robinson Center for Young Scholars.

To be eligible for the awards, fifth- and sixth-graders had to score in the upper 3 percent in reading/verbal or math/quantitative sections on a recent standardized-achievement or aptitude test that compared them to students in Washington or nationally by grade levels. High scores on the Washington Assessment for Student Learning (WASL) also qualified these students. Seventh- and eighth-graders were required to take either the SAT I or ACT, college-entrance tests, and score above the mean for college-bound high-school students.