Huntington Qualifies Seven for National Merit Program
Huntington High School Principal Carmela Leonardi was very happy to learn that seven current juniors have qualified to enter the 2012 National Merit Scholarship Program. The group is among a select group nationwide to qualify for the academic competition, which began in 1955.
Huntington students Sarah Cerezo, Juliana Coraor, Kaja Coraor, Andrew Ku, Matthew Petryk, Jeffrey Sun and Laura Zenzerovich have all qualified for the highly regarded National Merit program.
Each one of the teenagers compiled a selection index of at least 202, placing them among the top 50,000 out of 1.5 million participants. About 16,000 will later be named National Merit semifinalists. The remaining 34,000 will be officially commended for their performance on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.
Dr. Leonardi said the Huntington students will learn in September if they are semifinalists in the program. Semi-finalists will then have an opportunity to continue in the competition which will culminate in the naming of 8,200 National Merit finalists in February 2012. Finalists will begin being notified next March if they have been selected to receive a financial scholarship award. There are more than 20,000 high schools in the United States.
"We are all very proud of their achievements, especially since this is the first year we have had so many students qualify," Dr. Leonardi said.