Date: September 30, 1997
Contact: Irene Cromer
703/791-8720
 

Several Prince William County students, ten at county schools, with the rest enrolled at a regional magnet school, have been named semifinalists in the 1998 National Merit Scholarship program administered by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC). The county school board will honor the students at a reception on October 22.

The students are Sarah E. Feightner, Lisa R. Jones, Michael K. Krouse, Kevin J. Mansfield, Danielle M. Osler, and Sarah A. Rude, C.D. Hylton High School; Kristen E. Johnson, Stonewall Jackson High School; and Boyd K. Gunnell, Dawn Marie Dunn, and Ellen B. Kelleher, Woodbridge High School. Jones, who attended C.D. Hylton, and Gunnell, a who was enrolled at Woodbridge, have moved from Prince William County. Janie A. Hodges, a semi-finalist who transferred to Prince William County from a Department of Defense school in Germany, is a now student at Woodbridge High School and will be recognized with the others..

These students are among 15,000 semifinalists announced by the NMSC earlier this month. More than 1.1 million students in some 20,000 U.S. high schools entered the 1998 Merit

Program as juniors by taking the 1996 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). Using this qualifying test as an initial screen of program entrants, the

highest scorers in each state were designated Semifinalists, in numbers representing about one-half of one percent of the state's high school graduating class. Students take the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT) in the fall of their junior year and results are announced in September of the following year. To qualify as semifinalists, the Prince William students had to equal the Virginia state selection index, among the highest in the United States. A selection index is computed by multiplying the verbal score on the PSAT by two and adding the mathematics score. A perfect selection index would be 240.

Semifinalists must advance to the finalist level of the competition in order to be considered for Merit Scholarships. To qualify as a finalist, a semifinalist must fulfill additional requirements. The semifinalist and an official of the high school must complete a detailed scholarship application that provides information about the student's educational interests and goals, as well as participation and leadership in school and community activities. The student must have an outstanding academic record, be endorsed and recommended by the high school principal, and submit SAT scores that confirm his or her earlier PSAT/NMSQT performance. About 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to become finalists, and all Merit Scholars will be chosen from this group. Merit finalists will compete for approximately 7,400 scholarships worth more than $27 million to be awarded next spring.

Winners of Merit Scholarships will be selected on the basis of professional evaluations of finalists' abilities, accomplishments, and personal attributes considered important for success in rigorous college studies -- without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin or religious preference. Three types of scholarships will be awarded in 1997. Every finalist will be considered for one of

2,200 National Merit $2,000 Scholarships to be offered on a state representational basis; NMSC's own funds will underwrite 85 percent of these awards, and grants from corporate scholarship sponsors will finance about 15 percent.

Corporations, foundations, and other business organizations also will support some 1,200 Merit Scholarships for finalists who meet a sponsor's preferential criteria. Most corporate-sponsored awards will be provided for children of the grantor organization, but some will be offered for residents of communities a company serves, or finalists whose career goals a sponsor wishes to encourage.

College and university sponsors are expected to provide more than 4,000 Merit Scholarships. Winners of college-sponsored Merit Scholarships will be chosen from among finalists who will attend the institutions financing the awards.

The approximately 15,000 Semifinalists named in each year's National Merit Scholarship program show exceptional academic ability and potential for success in rigorous college studies. In this competition it is the individual student who is honored. The number of Semifinalists in a state or school cannot be used as a measure of the quality or effectiveness of any educational unit.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation, based in Evanston, Illinois, was established in 1955 to administer the Merit Program, a nationwide scholarship competition for academically talented high school students.