3 seniors named ‘National Merit Semi-finalists’

Calum Shank
Contributing Writer

Three seniors have been named National Merit Semi Finalists. Invented in 1955, the National Merit Scholarship Program is conducted by National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), a not-for-profit organization.

The seniors are Justin Baker, Fiona Smith and Catlin Noel. 

Noel said, ¨I don’t have too many comments on the competition, but I am glad to be chosen, and I think it will have an impact on my writing life and skills. 

 Annually about 50,000 high school students are honored, but only some 16,000 of them become semifinalists.  Students who qualify as semifinalists based on their grade on the Preliminary SAT Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test are the only program participants who have an opportunity to advance to the Finalist level and compete for National Merit Scholarships. 

The National Merit Scholarship Program has over 1.5 million total participants. The Selection Index scores of students who met program requirements were used to separate 16,000 Semifinalists on a state basis. Semifinalists are the highest graded students in all of the 50 states and are less than one percent of each state’s high school seniors.

About 7,600 of the Finalists will be chosen as Merit Scholarship winners in the 2021 competition. 

Smith said, ¨I’m not a particular opinionated person when it comes to the competition, but it is an honor to be selected for it.¨ 


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