Paulding Senior Named National Achievement Scholarship Semifinalist

A Paulding County student has been named a semifinalist in the 51st annual National Achievement Scholarship Program, an academic competition for African-American high school students.

The program is administered by National Merit Corp., an organization that recognizes and awards scholarships to academically gifted students.

Kia Alleyne of North Paulding High School made the list, according to a press release.

She was identified through exceptionally high scores on the PSAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which they took as juniors. As semifinalists, the students now must fulfill several requirements in order to advance to the finalist round. They must have a record of high academic performance, be endorsed and recommended by their school principal and earn SAT scores that confirm their earlier qualifying test performance.

A detailed scholarship application, which includes the student’s self-descriptive essay and information about his or her participation and leadership in school and community activities, also must be submitted.

Approximately 1,300 finalists will be named in January and of these, 800 overall winners will be chosen for $2,500 National Achievement scholarships from the organization. Approximately $2.5 million scholarship funds will be awarded nationwide.