NORWICH – Educators say there are some students who are such a pleasure to teach that they make the whole teaching profession worthwhile. By all accounts, Norwich High School Senior Patrick Bankich is one of those academic all-stars.

“Patrick is the guy who keeps you coming back here every day,” explained Linda Callea, who teaches Global History and Social Studies at NHS.

On Wednesday, Callea was one of five Norwich High School teachers who presented Bankich with a Letter of Commendation from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation in recognition of his outstanding performance on the Preliminary SAT exam he took last fall.

According to High School Counselor Tracy Maynard, Bankich scored a 209 out of a possible 240 on the exam, which also serves as the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. His score, the equivalent of a 2090 on the SATs themselves, placed him in the top five percent of the more than 1.5 million students who took the exam last year. Bankich is one of only 34,000 students across the country to receive recognition as a Commended Student.

According to the NMSC, recognizing high-achieving students such as Bankich is “essential to advancing educational excellence” in the United States.

“As demonstrated by their outstanding performance in our highly competitive program, the young men and women named Commended Students represent some of the most academically talented students in our country,” stated a representative from the organization.