Nine Fayette County Semifinalists Named in Scholarship Program

A total of nine seniors from McIntosh, Sandy Creek and Starr’s Mill high schools are among the 400 statewide selected as semifinalists in the 2011 National Merit Scholarship Program.

Nationally, they make up the approximately 16,000 semifinalists who are competing in the 56th annual scholarship program. The 2011 semifinalists are (McIntosh High) Erika Burgess, Mary Cook, Matthew Dawson, Kathleen Newman, Robert Worley, Shiyi Zhang; (Sandy Creek) Poonim Daya; (Starr’s Mill High) Graham Bloomsmith, Justin Buchanan.

These academically talented high school seniors have the opportunity to continue in the competition for some 8,400 Merit Scholarship awards worth more than $36 million that will be offered next spring. To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements and advance to the finalist level of the competition. About 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to become finalists, and approximately half of the finalists will be selected as Merit Scholarship winners.

About 1.5 million juniors in nearly 22,000 U.S. high schools entered the 2011 National Merit Program by taking the 2009 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, which represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

To become a finalist, a semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by the school principal and earn SAT scores that confirm the student’s earlier qualifying test performance. The semifinalist and a school official must submit a detailed scholarship application, which includes the student’s essay and information about the semifinalist’s participation and leadership in school and community activities.

Merit scholarship winners of 2011 will be announced April-July.

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