Prep Talk

PREP STUDENTS NAMED NATIONAL MERIT SEMIFINALISTS

Posted September 21st, 2011

Two Saint Augustine Prep students have been selected as semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Competition.  Seniors, John Vito d’Antonio-Bertagnolli and Justin Richter will be competing for merit scholarships which will be awarded to about 8,400 finalists in the spring.  Awards offered in 2012 consist of 2,500 single-payment National Merit $2,500 Scholarships for which all Finalists will be considered; about 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who meet a company or business grantor’s specified criteria; and some 4,900 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for which only Finalists who will attend their respective sponsor institutions are considered.  “We congratulate John Vito and Justin on their academic achievement and their ability to score among the highest in the country,” said Headmaster Fr. Francis Horn, OSA.

In each annual National Merit Scholarship Program, about 50,000 academically talented high school students are honored, but only some 16,000 of more than 1.5 million entrants are named as Semifinalists.  Students who qualify as Semifinalists based on their performance on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) are the only program participates. Initiated in 1955, the National Merit Program is conducted by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), a non-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance.