Whiteland Community High School’s top two students are planning to keep the ball rolling in college after ambitious high school careers.
Sophie Venter, who graduated with the school’s top GPA of 4.49, wants to pursue a law career. And she’s already been accepted by some of the nation’s top colleges.
Those colleges include Boston College, which she is enrolled in for the fall. She may be able to change that decision to attend other universities she was previously wait-listed at but later admitted to including: University of Notre Dame, Columbia University and Georgetown University.
The collegiate menu she has to choose from is in large part due to a strongly focused eye toward academics. She filled her schedule with Advanced Placement, or AP, classes. This year alone, she in enrolled in AP calculus BC, AP biology, AP Spanish, AP psychology and AP government. In total, she’s taken 14 college-level classes.
Venter isn’t just a bookworm. She’s also heavily involved in student life outside of school. She is on the student council, she’s an officer for the school’s National Honors Society chapter, and is a member of both the Spanish Honors Society and Fellowship for Christian Athletes.
Venter is also athletically inclined. She’s played tennis most of her life, including in high school and middle school, and playing the sport has brought her some of her fondest memories of her time at Whiteland Community High School, she said.
“My conference match last year is my favorite memory,” Venter said. “Everyone was rallying together. My match was late, one of the last ones, and we were cheering each other on. I won a close match because of the support from my teammates.”
In college, Venter will major in English but pursue the pre-law track, after which she plans to attend law school, she said.
“My parents have encouraged me to think about law and law incorporated both the things I love about math and English,” Venter said. “I have sat with lawyers at law firms, taken summer classes, and am interested in helping people by being a lawyer.”
<img class="size-medium wp-image-1438571" src="http://www.dailyjournal.net/wp-content/files/sites/9/2020/06/Trevor-Moorman-mug-240×300.jpg" alt="Moorman" width="240" height="300" /> MoormanTrevor Moorman, the school’s salutatorian, let a love of science, technology, engineering and math carry him to a 4.36 GPA, and earning him a ticket to Purdue University, where he plans to study engineering and eventually land a job in the field, Moorman said.
Moorman was enrolled in four AP classes this year: calculus BC, literature and composition, chemistry and statistics.
Like Venter, Moorman is heavily involved in school outside the classroom. He is part of Key Club, National Honors Society and is a member of a student advisory for Whiteland Town Manager Norm Gabehart. One of the things he’s most proud of is his involvement on the school’s lacrosse team, which formed midway through his freshman year, he said.
“(My favorite memory) is a bit of a tie between our first home game and our first win,” Moorman said. “It was when we realized that rather than a bunch of friends getting together to play lacrosse, we were an actual team.”
<strong>THE VENTER FILE</strong>
Name: Sophie Venter
School: Whiteland Community High School
Class ranking: Valedictorian
Age: 18
Parents: John and Jill Venter
College plans: Major in English with a pre-law track at Boston College, Columbia University, University of Notre Dame or Georgetown University
Career goal: Lawyer
<strong>THE MOORMAN FILE</strong>
Name: Trevor Moorman
School: Whiteland Community High School
Class rankling: Salutatorian
Age: 18
Parents: Andy and Michelle Moorman
College plans: Major in engineering at Purdue University
Career goal: Engineer
