National Merit Semifinalists Announced

Saint Viator High School learned Wednesday that two seniors had been named semifinalists by the National Merit Scholarship Program.

 

Seniors Olivia Gauthier and Kathleen Hannon joined this elite group based on their preliminary SAT scores taken when they were juniors.

They emerged from a pool of 1.5 million juniors from 21,000 high schools who took the PSAT that year, which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

 

Officials with the National Merit Scholarship Program said this year’s semi-finalist pool represents the highest-scoring entrants in each state or less than one percent of high school seniors.

 

These students now will have a chance to advance to the finalist level, and continue in the competition for some 7,600 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $31 million that will be offered next spring.

 

National Merit Scholarship officials say 90 percent of semifinalists advance to become finalists. They must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by the high school principal, and earn SAT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.