The Anne Arundel County Public Schools has announced that eleven students from five Anne Arundel County public high schools have been selected as semifinalists in the 2010 National Merit Scholarship competition.
Annapolis, Broadneck, and South River high schools tied for the largest number of semifinalists among county schools this year with three each. Arundel and Severna Park had one student each on the prestigious annual list.
“This is tremendously exciting news and speaks volumes both for our students and the teachers and staff at our schools who work so hard with them,” said schools Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell. “I am very excited that these 11 students are getting such distinctive recognition and the opportunity for a college scholarship for their years of hard work.”
Semifinalists in the competition, which is overseen by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, were selected from more than 1.5 million juniors in nearly 22,000 U.S. high schools who were top scorers on the 2009 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT).
About 90 percent of the semifinalists will advance to finalist status based on criteria such as academic record, recommendation by school principal, SAT performance, and participation and leadership in school and community activities.
Every finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit Scholarships worth $2,500 each that will be awarded on a state representational basis. About 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 250 corporations and business organizations for finalists who meet their specified criteria, such as children of the grantor’s employees or residents of communities where sponsor plants or offices are located. In addition, about 200 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 4,900 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.
The local semifinalists are:
Annapolis High School
Dylan Davis
Luke Hart-Moynihan
Te-Hsuan Lee
Arundel High School
Molly Sinnott
Broadneck High School
Lindsey Kellogg
Christian Kemp
Avery Wentworth
Severna Park High School
Margaret Sundel
South River High School
Robert Holmes
William Kelley
Alex Newton
