Students recognized
The annual National Merit Recipient Assembly was held at Centerville High School (CHS) on Oct. 14, and 25 students were recognized.
About 1.6 million juniors take the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/ NMSQT) each year, with the top 50,000 recognized by the National Merit Scholarship Program for receiving the highest Selection Index scores in critical reading, mathematics and writing skills.
Eleven CHS seniors were named Semifinalists: Mia Avera, Jae-Hee Bae, Elton Cao, Sabrina Ingram, Lila Kenney, Samir Lohana, Seethalakshmi Saravanan, Madeline Thomas, Quinn Watercutter, Kevin Whitehead and Luke Wisniewski.
Fourteen seniors were named Commended Scholars: Sarah Ahmad, Lillian Ali, Christopher Anderson, Jack Drabenstott, Tyler Garcia, Grecia Garcia-Rodriguez, Jenna Hallbeck, Kayla Hughes, Benjamin Jones, Riley Nielsen, Shayan Shah, Adarsh Suresh, Larry Zhang and Nicholas Zumberge.
Centerville’s 11 Semifinalists are part of a distinguished group of only 16,000 students nationwide, representing the highest scoring entrants in each state. These academically talented high school seniors have the opportunity to continue in the competition to earn one of the 7,500 National Merit Scholarships that will be offered next spring.
The National Merit Scholarship
Corp. (NMSC), a not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance, was established in 1955 specifically to conduct the annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Scholarships are underwritten by NMSC with its own funds and by approximately 410 business organizations and higher education institutions that share NMSC’s goals of honoring the nation’s scholastic champions and encouraging the pursuit of academic excellence. Visit www.nationalmerit. org for more information about the program.