By DIANE GASPER-O'BRIEN

dobrien@dailynews.net

He's not on the 4.0 honor roll.

But that makes little difference to Ben Drabkin.

The Hays High School senior still gets high grades, and he has a knack for scoring particularly well on tests.

The latter has helped him earn semifinalist honors in this year's National Merit Scholarship Program.

"I just try to do my best and not really worry too much about the grades," said Drabkin, who isn't far from the 4.0 mark with his 3.85 GPA.

Each year, about 50,000 of the 1.5 million students who take the PSAT test qualify for recognition in the National Merit program. About 16,000 students then make the semifinalist level and fill out more paperwork to try to qualify for finalist recognition.

Drabkin is one of only two students west of Salina to have earned semifinalist distinction this year. The other was Eric Ruth from Johnson-Stanton County in the southwest corner of Kansas.

Test taking always has come relatively easy to Drabkin.

He has taken the ACT only once, and recorded a 33. A perfect ACT score is 36.

"I only had a week to prepare for it," Drabkin said. "So I might I take it again, if I see that it will make a difference," as far as scholarship offers go.

His results on the SAT were similar, scoring a 2,240 out of a possible 2,400.

Earlier this semester, Hays High learned Drabkin was one of two HHS students to earn the National Scholar Award from the College Board's Advanced Placement Program for scoring an average grade of 4 on a 5-point scale on all AP exams taken.

And that came during Drabkin's junior year last year.

"That's a wonderful trait," his high school counselor, Suellyn Stenger, said of Drabkin's test-taking abilities.

Drabkin already has taken all the advanced placement classes Hays High has to offer and now is enrolled in two college courses at Fort Hays.

However, he has yet to decide on a major. Drabkin has a variety of interests -- his college class list has included logic, history and calculus -- and wants to explore several avenues before picking a set curriculum course.

"I'm planning to go to school and experiment with lots of different classes," he said.

Drabkin thinks a small liberal arts college would be the perfect fit for him and has visited Grinnell (Iowa) College, Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., and Swarthmore (Pa.) College, all which feature enrollments of less than 2,000 students.

Those three appear to be front-runners on his list of choices.

Nonetheless, Drabkin is keeping open his options for possibly attending an in-state school, so therefore he took the test for the Dane Hansen Scholarship Program last weekend.

The Dane G. Hansen Foundation annually awards scholarship money to students in 61 northwest and north-central Kansas counties who will be attending school in the state of Kansas.

"If I find that staying in state makes the most sense, I might do that," Drabkin said of his decision to take the Hansen test.

One possibility that could keep Drabkin in Kansas is if he gets accepted into the University of Kansas honors program, a smaller select group of about 1,300 students.

Either way, Drabkin knows college will be a challenge, just the way he likes it.

"Those are fairly selective colleges," Drabkin said of his top three picks at this time. "A lot of people there have at least commended level (National Merit)."

And he's ready, Stenger says.

"Beyond the shadow of a doubt, he looks toward the future and challenges himself by taking those rigorous courses," she said, "because that's what's going to make him successful in the future."

One of Drabkin's breaks from academics includes playing the violin, and he plans to stay active in music in college.

"Definitely," he said. "No reason to stop now."

"Ben is a prime example of a well-rounded student," Stenger said. "He's very gifted, a young man of many talents."