Paducah Tilghman High School juniors Caroline Adkins, Isaac Bailey, Max Canlas, Braxton Davis, Rex Gay, and Emme Haus have been accepted to the 2026 Commonwealth Honors Academy. Cadence Bibb and Jadianne Underwood have been named alternates. This program is highly selective among high school juniors from across the nation with approximately 100 accepted to participate each year.
The Commonwealth Honors Academy is a three-week academic enrichment experience held every June on Murray State University’s main campus. Students live and learn with their peers as they take college-level honors courses, take field trips that enrich classroom experiences, hear speakers and professional artists perform and talk about their work, and participate in social and personal growth seminars.
Students who attend this academy gain three hours of transferable university credit. They also receive a guaranteed in-state full-tuition scholarship to MSU for four years. There’s no obligation to attend MSU and the credits can be transferred to a college of the student’s choice. All students applying for the Commonwealth Honors Academy should have a 3.5 GPA (on a 4 point scale) and a 25 Composite ACT score (or the equivalent PSAT, SAT, or another standardized test score). High school juniors throughout the nation are invited to apply to this competitive program.
"These students' excellence in academics, extracurriculars, and service helped them to stand out among a very competitive group of applicants from the state, region, and across the country,” said Tilghman School Counselor Jonathan Durr. “We’re very proud to have had such a strong group of Commonwealth Honors Academy applicants from Paducah Tilghman this year."
Pictured L to R: Braxton Davis, Emme Haus, Issac Bailey, Candace Bibb, Rex Gay, Caroline Adkins, Jadianne Underwood (Max Canlas is on the Interact trip to El Salvador and is not pictured)