Blazers receive recognition for academic achievement

Last week, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) named 35 seniors as finalists in the National Merit Scholarship Competition and eight students as finalists in the National Achievement Scholarship Competition.

The NMSC offers a variety of scholarships to high achieving students based on performance on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifing Test (PSAT/NMSQT) taken in fall of junior year. As finalists, the nominated students are eligible to receive a $2,500 National Merit Scholarship or National Achievement Scholarship, as well as a variety of scholarships sponsored by certain corporations and colleges.

According to the NMSC, approximately 8,400 National Merit Finalists earn a Merit Scholarship. From March to mid-June, the NMSC will notify those students who will receive a scholarship.

At the start of the National Merit Scholarship Competition each year, the NMSC chose the top 50,000 scorers on the PSAT/NMSQT test. From there, NMSC selects 16,000 semifinalists in September. Semifinalists are the top PSAT scorers in each state. Last fall, semifinalists filled out applications through the school to be selected as a finalist. Earlier this month the NMSC selected 15,000 finalists from the pool of semifinalist applicants.

The National Achievement Scholarship recognizes academic achievement of black students and the selection process for the Achievement Scholarship is similar to that of the National Merit Scholarship Competition. Of the 4,800 students honored based on PSAT scores, 1,600 were selected as semifinalists; the 1,300 finalists were notified earlier this month. Approximately 800 students receive the $2,500 National Achievement Scholarship or a corporate-sponsored achievement award.

The finalists received notifications from NMSC in the mail last week. This past September, 50 Blazers were announced to be NMSC semi-finalists.

For more information about the scholarships, visit the NMSC web site.

The 2011 National Merit Scholarship Finalists are:
Erik Agard
Fang Cao
Savannah Cheo
Andrew Das Sarma
Jewel Galbraith
Tej Ganti
Andrew Gibiansky
Casey Goldvale
Hannah Ho
Austin Hou
Shelley Jin
Ajay Kannan
Shilpa Kannan
Lev Krayzman
Nilay Kumar
Scott Lawrence
Rachel Leksana
David Liao
Winston Liu
Monica Ly
Eli Okun
Andrew Rodgers-Schatz
Natalie Rutsch
Sarah Schwartz
Thiagarajan Sezhian
Qinlan Shen
Emily Shih
Jennifer Sholar
Jonathan Song
Ankit Sood
Jed Tan
Aaron Tucker
Robert Ullman
Sandra Yan
Thomas Zhang

The 2011 National Achievement Scholarship Finalists are:
Erik Agard
Brian Clanton
Daniela Duvra
Saleiha Mayer-Marks
Sarah McMillian
Cy Neita
Aaron Tucker
Selena Wyborski

Editor's Note: Casey Goldvale is Art Editor of Silver Chips Online. Jewel Galbraith is Managing Features Editor of Silver Chips Print. Eli Okun is Managing Op/Ed Editor of Silver Chips Print. Natalie Rutsch is Managing Entertainment Editor of Silver Chips Print. Sarah Schwartz is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Silver Chips Print. Jennifer Sholar is Managing Features Editor of Silver Chips Print.