Brookwood and Shiloh Students Recognized as National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

A prestigious national honor that comes with a monetary scholarship could be in the near future for some 30 Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS) students. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) announced this week that 28 high school seniors were named 2013 National Achievement Scholarship Program semifinalists, making them candidates for approximately 800 achievement scholarship awards worth more than $2.5 million.

The National Achievement Scholarship Program, founded to honor and provide scholarships to academically promising black students, annually recognizes high-performing high school seniors.

The 2013 Snellville honorees are:

Brookwood High
Ruth Melka, Naana D. Obeng-Marnu, Jamani Smith, and Maliq R. Winter

Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
Suanubarilee N. Bakor, Kevin Edwards, Troy Morrow, and Ashanti S. Turner

Shiloh High
Hermoon A. Worku

The Gwinnett students are among 1,600 students from across the nation named as semifinalist. This year they qualified for the program based on each student’s high achievement on the 2011 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). More than 160,000 high school juniors from across the United States requested to be considered for the 2013 National Achievement Scholarship Program when they took the PSAT. Out of the 160,000 test-takers who asked to be considered, only 1,600 were designated as semifinalists.

These academically talented students now have the opportunity to advance to the finalist level of the competition. All Achievement Scholarship winners are selected from that finalist group on the basis of their abilities, accomplishments, and potential for success in college. To be considered for finalist status, students must complete a detailed application, present a record of high academic performance throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a school official, and earn SAT scores that confirm the PSAT/NMSQT performance.

The information collected about each finalist will be used to determine winners of 800 Achievement Scholarship awards, all worth a total of $2.4 million. Scholarship Winners will be announced in the spring.