Los Alamitos Unified School District announces that Los Alamitos High School seniors Jinha Chung, Janine Kim, Timothy Ross, Lyn Stoler, Benjamin Yeh and Christopher Yeh are all 2014 semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Competition.
Los Alamitos Unified School District announces that Los Alamitos High School seniors Jinha Chung, Janine Kim, Timothy Ross, Lyn Stoler, Benjamin Yeh and Christopher Yeh are all 2014 semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Competition.
Officials of National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) recently announced the names of approximately 16,000 semifinalists in the 59th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.
These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 8,000 National Merit Scholarships offered next spring, worth about $35 million. To be considered for a Merit Scholarship® award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level of the competition. About 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and more than half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title.
Steps in the 2014 Competition
About 1.5 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2014 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2012 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants.
The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors and includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.
From the approximately 16,000 semifinalists, about 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist level. In February they will be notified of this designation. All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from this group of finalists. Merit Scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference.
National Merit Scholarship winners of the 2014 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join more than 300,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.