A total of 37 Japanese students took a crucial step in their understanding of the language in December after passing the first two levels of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). The test has been offered since 1984 and has become the most relied-upon Japanese language test in the world, with as many as 770,000 people taking the test in 2009. There are five levels of the test, with N1 being the highest level and N5 the starting level.

Students who passed the N4 level are: recent graduates Ashley Hejtmanek and Victoria Liang, rising seniors Noah Levy, Mark Taboada and Tiffany Jang; and rising juniors Erik Andersen, Catherine Manea, Indica Sur, Aileen Wen, Lorraine Wong, Iris Xia and Wilbur Yang.

Students who passed the N5 level are: rising seniors Crystal Chen and Shilpa Nataraj; rising juniors Meera Madhavan, Christian Lantzsch, Justin Yang, Joseph Wang, Michael Chen and Ryan Hume; and rising sophomores Adarsh Battu, Brandon Yang, Viram Naidu, Daniel Pak, Monika Lee, Albert Chu, Nathan Dhablania, Kristine Lin, Jeffrey Hanke, Srikar Pyda, Darian Edvaison, Maya Madhavan, Benjamin Chu, Kevin Monhanram, Krish Sanghi, Kiana Bisla and Arman Mortazavi.