Schools

New Trier Seniors Named as National Merit Semifinalists

The students will have the opportunity to compete for scholarships worth a total of more than $32 million.

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Thirty-seven New Trier seniors were named as semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program competition on Wednesday. 

The semifinalists are: 

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Courtney A. Ackerman, Rose Al-Abosy, Hayley A. Bounds, Caroline J. Chen, Eric T. Chen, Flannery C. Dolan, Peter J. Gabrielides, Constance S. Gong, Madelaine A. Hack, Margaret G. Hall, Griffin A. Harris, Samuel H. Heavenrich, Rong Hu, Meredith C. Hyun, Elizabeth V. Joyce, Audrey G. Mang, Dawson E. Mills, Patrick O’Connor, Emma E. Office, Patrick O’Reilly, Yoonho Park, John W. Pietrowicz, William K. Robinson, Shuhua Shen, Benjamin J. Stempel, Joyce C. Sun, Sydney F. Tan, Arthur L. Tsang, Sonya Vohra, Rachel L. Watkin, Dale Watt, Eliza H. Weaver, Miranda F. Wei, Michael A. Weller, Cailin E. Whisler, Emma N. Wold, and Julia Wolf.

In Illinois, 719 students qualified as semifinalists. These students will have the opportunity to continue in the competition for 8,300 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $32 million. 

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To become a finalist, a semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, and earn SAT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test. About 15,000 semifinalists are expected to advance to the finalist level, and Merit Scholar designees will be selected based on their skills, accomplishments and potential for success in rigorous college studies. 

Students who received the semifinalist designation this year had to achieve a preliminary SAT/ National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test selection index score of 213 or greater. 

Less than 1 percent, or about 16,000 out of the 1.5 million juniors across the country who entered the 2013 program by taking the 2011 preliminary SAT/ National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, earn the semifinalist designation.

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