Seven Bowie National Merit semi finalists were announced in September. The winners have recieved recognition for the extremely high scores they earned on the PSAT.
The following students are considered National Merit semi-finalists: Nathan Alvarez Olson, Madelyn Cain, Alexander Gorden, Jack Guy, Sydney Hutton, Sarah Jansen, and Kate McClellan.
The National Merit Competition is a United States academic scholarship program to provide recognition academically and for university scholarships. About 1.5 million students out of 22,000 high schools enter this program and only those who meet the finalist requirements qualify.
“This program really gives students the candy store,” student-counselor Nona May said. “It opens up opportunities for students that may not have been there before.”
To qualify, students must submit a detailed scholarship application, have outstanding academic records, earn an outstanding SAT score, and have a college advisor recommend the student.
“To be a semi-finalist I had to score within the top 1% of Texas juniors taking the PSAT,” senior Kate Mcclellan said. “After I recieved this score, I was entered as a potential finalist, where grades are examined as well as school activities and recommendations.”
Semi-finalists are the highest-scoring entrants in the program for each state and represent the top percentage of the state’s senior students.
“Winning semi-finalist wasn’t necessarily challenging but it definitely took some practice,” senior Madelyn Cain said. “I had to up my score by 20 points to qualify, but it only took a few practice tests to get there.”
While being a semi-finalist does not in itself guarantee college benefits and scholarships it opens up the opportunity to later become a finalist. After becoming a finalist, many levels of college and scholarship benefits open up.
“If you make it to the next step you can get anything from a one-time scholarship to a full ride to particular colleges,” Mcclellan said. “One of my top schools offers half-off tuition to the National Merit Finalists.”
If a student is unsure of what college they want to attend it is an option to get a general National Merit scholarship. This scholarship is available for the student to use at any university.
“I’m not sure which college I’ll be going to as of right now, so I’m going to apply for a general scholarship of about 2,500 dollars that can be used at any school,” Cain said. “It’s worth it.”
According to senior Nathan Olson, this recognition is not necessarily an easy task and there must be outside studying.
“My advice would be to study for the PSAT and SAT. A lot of people think it is natural smarts, but studying will always help improve your score,” Olson said. “It also helps to do the SAT problem of the day, every day.”
In addition, the National Achievement Scholarship Program provides recognition to 1,600 Black American high school students nation-wide who received the highest score on the PSAT.
Application materials were sent to students who qualify through their high school principals.
According to May, in order to qualify students must meet high academic standards and are required to advance to finalist standing in the competition.
“The National Achievement Program is much more rigorous,” May said. “There are at least one or two Bowie students who qualify every year so it really means a lot to the African American families.”
The National Achievement Scholarship winners are later selected based on their accomplishments, skills, and abilities that have been consistently portrayed.
“To be a national achievement semi-finalist I had to get one of the top scores of African Americans in the country,” senior Madesyn Johnson said. “It wasn’t necessarily super challenging, but definitely an accomplishment.”
According to Johnson, not only studying goes along way but remaining humble and keeping a strong mind-set helps going into the test.
“If anyone is looking to achieve this goal, I suggest preparing for both the PSAT and SAT by taking a preparation class,” Johnson said. “Feel confident going into the test, it goes along way.”
The National Achievement Scholarship program was initiated to recognize the consistent achievement among Black American high school students and award them with potential university scholarships and later advance the to the Achievement Scholarship competition.
“It’s really cool to be the one African American at Bowie who received this recognition,” Johnson said. “It’s great to see my hard work does not go unnoticed.”
According to May, these programs have been around for so long and have made such a big impact that students’ parents remember exactly who won at their school.
“I know how this program has impacted my life, I know how it has impacted my husbands,” May said. “It opens up doors and colleges are willing to invest.”