Copyright Chicago Tribune
A math whiz and a prodigy cellist from the northern suburbs are two of Illinois’ four U.S. Presidential Scholars this year. Shuja Raina of Glenview and Jan Nedvetsky of Wilmette were among the 161 students honored by the U.S. Department of Education in September. Presidential Scholars are selected from high school classes in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and overseas. Nedvetsky, a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, has been studying the cello since the age of 5. He was named a Young Arts Winner with Distinction in cello performance last year and has performed with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago as well as on WFMT, National Public Radio and ABC 7. Raina captained Glenbrook South High School’s Math Team in his senior year, twice qualified for the American Invitational Mathematics Exam and scored a 1590 on his SATs, including a perfect score on the math section. News of their awards, which are typically issued in the spring, came as a pleasant surprise to both students. “All summer I’d been waiting for it, because it was summer and I didn’t really have too much else to think about,” Raina said. “And then once I got to college I completely forgot about it.” Nedvetsky described a similar experience. “I gave up on the thing and moved on, but it ended up coming in mid-September and I was very happy,” he said. Raina and Nedvetsky’s teachers described each as an exceptional individual with a unique affinity for their disciplines. Bryan Cope, who taught Raina at Glenbrook South and coached him on the math team, says Raina has “outstanding mathematical intuition” and is possibly the most talented student he’s encountered in his 21 years as a teacher. Cope said Raina was a standout among his peers in Cope’s multivariable calculus and linear algebra class, though Raina was a junior in a class of seniors. Despite his mathematical intuition, Raina was an engaged and attentive student where others would have been content to coast. “A lot of our students who are top students like him are driven, but you don’t a lot of time see that drive out of true interest in the material,” Cope said. “He’s genuinely interested in math.” Cope also described Raina as a strong leader who took time to teach other members of Glenbrook’s math team. Nedvetsky has shown skill well beyond his years, according to Hans Jensen, a cello professor at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music who has taught Nedvetsky since he was 15. Jensen called Nedvetsky “brilliant” and “fearless” and said he demonstrated a level of focus that few his age possessed. Nedvetsky has a future as an excellent soloist, if he chooses, Jensen said, noting that he was already performing at venues – like the weekly Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert, where Nedvetsky is slated to play in November – that some graduate students were still striving for. “Sometimes you have to push people to make them eager,” Jensen said. “He pulls you along. That’s exciting.” Nedvetsky is continuing to study cello under Jensen at Northwestern, where he enrolled as a freshman this fall. He says he chose to attend the university to continue under Jensen, whom he called “inspiring,” and for the rigorous academics it offers alongside its music program. Homeschooled since the fifth grade, he says, taking classes alongside academically talented peers has motivated him in a new way. “It inspires me to see how they’re all studying and getting it, and it pushes me to work a lot harder,” he said. Nedvetsky said he’s thinking about a solo career but would also like being part of an ensemble like the Chicago Symphony Orchestra or the New York Philharmonic. He said he’d like to travel the country performing in small towns, citing an experience playing for an audience in Salmon, Idaho (population 3,100) that was hours away from an airport, much less a classical concert hall. “It’s a super small town, and most of those people didn’t really get to hear live classical music,” Nedvetsky said. “I was thinking I could implement that into my career someday, go around rural areas and play.” Nedvetsky and Raina both credited their families’ support for their respective success, with Raina singling out his father’s support in particular. Raina also credited Cope for “reinforcing” Raina’s love of math as his teacher and coach. He’s now studying applied mathematics at Washington University in St. Louis, where he’s also involved in the South Asian Student Association, the Math Club, Student Investment Club and the Poker Club. (He’s decent at poker, he says, but others are “a lot better than me.”) Raina attributed his drive to a realization he had as a cross-country runner his sophomore year of high school. “I realized that I’m showing up to practice every day, so I might as well give it my best, and my coach really drilled that mindset into me,” Raina said. “Since then, I started going into everything with this mindset of ‘I have to do this anyways, I might as well make the most of it.’” Joshua Irvine is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
