Five Huntington Students Earn National Merit Commended Honors
Five current Huntington High School students have earned honors in this year’s National Merit Scholarship Program. Seniors Max Cohen, Shannon Connors, Andrew Goodrich, Mira Gutoff and Ericka Norton garnered “Commended” status, which places them among the top 50,000 students of the more than 1.4 million entrants in the 2007 program.
The National Merit Scholarship Program, which dates to 1955, is an academic competition that provides recognition and scholarships for top students. About 34,000 students receive Letters of Commendation with the rest advancing to the semifinals.
“As you can imagine, all of our Commended students are very bright and high achieving who take their academic studies very seriously,” Huntington Principal Carmela Leonardi said. “Not only have they challenged themselves with the most rigorous courses any high school offers their students, but they have extended their interests to school and community activities.”
The competition begins each year when students take the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Competitors must also meet various stringent participation requirements. They are eventually assigned a “selection index” that is based on their critical reading, math and writing skills scores.
One of Huntington’s Commended students was within a single point of advancing to the semifinals and a second was within three points. Some Commended students are later considered for special scholarships sponsored by corporations.
Dr. Leonardi said Huntington’s contingent of honorees contribute a great deal to the school, in addition to just intellectual prowess. “They are part of multiple honors societies that pledge themselves to service in different areas,” the principal said. “The teachers and I are honored to be able to work and interact with these model students.”
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