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Sarah Fox, Ben Goldschlager, Charles Jersey, Mrinal Kumar, Eliza Llewellyn, Amanda Mezoff, Warren Schorr, Steven Sobel and Katherine Zhou are among approximately 15,000 students nationwide named finalists in the academic competition. The students were selected from a pool of roughly 16,000 semifinalists, who were named in September.
“Having nine National Merit finalists is a visible sign that we have an outstanding student body,” Staples Principal John Dodig said. “This many students in one class reaching this level of success lets the world know how serious our students are about becoming well-educated and how dedicated our teaching staff is in helping them reach their potential.”
In order to become a finalist in the program, the students had to submit a detailed scholarship application, which included evidence of their high performance; endorsement by the school principal; SAT scores; a self-descriptive essay and evidence of the student’s participation and leadership in school and community activities.
“Because I spend so many hours each week with our students, I know how talented and hard-working they are,” Dodig said of the finalists. “Some of the public, however, needs a metric to judge just how well-prepared our students are. The National Merit Scholarship Program is one such a metric.”
Of the finalists, approximately 8,000 will receive a scholarship award. Winners will be notified beginning this month.
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