Three Blazers selected as National Achievement Scholarship semifinalists

Blair seniors Natasha Coleman, Sebastian Johnson and Sayoh Mansaray are semifinalists in the National Achievement Scholarship Program, an award given to outstanding black high school seniors. Twenty-two seniors in MCPS have been recognized as scholarship semifinalists.

Approximately 1,600 out of more than 120,000 black students nationwide have been selected as semifinalists. Eligibility for the scholarship is based on scores from the PSAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

The National Achievement Scholarship Program began in 1964 to honor outstanding black students throughout the country and has awarded more than $83 million to over 26,000 students to date.

Approximately 1,300 students out of the 1,600 semifinalists will rank as finalists and then compete for one of the 700 available $2,500 National Achievement scholarships, which will be awarded in the spring of 2006.