UTPB STEM Academy senior Allison Barnes is not only studying for her pilot’s license and planning to study aerospace engineering, she’s reached the zenith of test scores.
With the senior class and her parents in attendance, Barnes was recently recognized in the Founders Building at the STEM Academy for being a National Commended Scholar. The campus had previously recognized National Merit Hispanic Recognition for Isaac Arellano and National African American Recognition for Jashon Lemons.
“… I got notified a few weeks ago that Ali also qualified with a different category of award. Ali’s award is a Commended Scholar that’s based on the national score range. It ranges differently than the other ones that we had in September. And so, Ali’s scores were ranked within the top 50,000 kids in the nation that took the PSAT last year, so she qualified as a Commended Scholar,” STEM Middle and High School Principal Cody Griffin said.
Griffin said the recognition was a little bit delayed.
“We are very proud of what she’s accomplished, and so, in addition to Isaac and Jashon, we’ve got our third commended scholar here and it’s Ali Barnes,” Griffin said.
He added that throughout the day people should congratulate Barnes for her achievement. Her parents, Amy and Jeffrey Barnes, were in attendance for the occasion as was the senior class.
“Ali works very hard. …,” said her mother, Amy Barnes, the media specialist at Reagan Elementary.
She added that Allison’s work is finally paying off and she’s getting some of the recognition she deserves.
Her dad, Jeffrey Barnes, a corporate pilot, said Allison puts in the extra effort and sticks to it.
Amy Barnes wasn’t at all surprised by her daughter’s achievement.
“Ali has put in 120% since her ninth grade year, or actually her whole life, but she has really made the effort in high school to go above and beyond. She does 120% every single day,” Amy Barnes.
The Barnes’ son, Rylan, is in sixth grade at STEM Academy.
For her part, Allison Barnes, who had her 18th birthday Nov. 1, said she was excited to learn of her recognition, but wasn’t expecting it.
“… A lot of colleges offer really good merit-based scholarships for things like National Merit Commended Scholar, and so that’s super nice, especially when you’re looking at lots of different schools because it helps you decide,” Barnes said.
Barnes looked up the scores for National Merit scholars and found she had scored above that level, so she should have been notified.
Griffin said STEM called College Board and verified Barnes’ status.
Barnes said she hopes to attend Texas A&M University to study aerospace engineering.
“… I want to work in autonomous controls for aerospace engineering. It’s basically … drones and autonomous flight, so remote control flight, and they actually have an entire lab dedicated to that at A&M with several different resources. It’d be really exciting to get to work with those professors who are doing that interesting research. I have some friends, like PhD student friends, there,” Barnes said.
Her dad is working with Allison so she can earn her pilot’s license. Up to her ears in school work, Barnes is working on her license on weekends with her father as her instructor, so she doesn’t know how long it will take to get her pilot’s license.
“I wanted to be an engineer and I was looking at different kind of engineering. … I’ve loved airplanes since I was like 5 years old. There’s photos of me in a cockpit when I was like, 4, so it was a little bit of indoctrination,” Barnes said.
Barnes was kind of nonchalant about her classmates coming out to congratulate her, but she appreciated it.
“I’ve gone to school with a lot of them since I was 11. We … cheer each other on support each other and that kind of stuff,” she added.
Barnes said she plans to enter the science and engineering fair at UTPB early next year. She’s working on her project right now.
“It’s a continuation of last year’s. I’m doing a similar thing, but … I have some improvements I’m making on that project. It’s a solar updraft tower, so the idea is to convert heat energy and wind energy into electricity,” Barnes said.
She also is a Student Council officer and captain of the robotics team.
Asked what advice she would give to younger students who want to achieve what she has, Barnes said she really likes a quote from the late physicist Richard Feynman, who when people would ask him how he’s so successful he would say, “Come to my office at 8 p.m. on a Friday, and I’ll tell you.”
“It’s like last night, it was Halloween and I was studying for my calculus test at 10 p.m., so just you have to put in the time. It takes time,” Barnes said.
