Riverwood Charter Recognizes National Merit, Achievement Semifinalists

Photo: from left to right, Albert Xiong, Luka Marinkovic, Ethan Mann, Caroline Stanek, Jeffrey Hooks, Corinn Gist-Stevenson and Kara Wise. Credit: Riverwood International Charter School

Riverwood International Charter School recently recognized its National Merit Semifinalists and National Achievement Semifinalists.

Riverwood’s National Achievement semifinalists are Kara Wise and Corinn Gist-Stevenson.

The two students were finalists in the 51th 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.

The students were 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.

Riverwood’s National Merit Semifinalists were:

• Albert Xiong
• Luka Marinkovic
• Ethan Mann
• Caroline Stanek
• Jeffrey Hooks

These five students were named as part of the 60th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. They join academically talented high school seniors from across the country in competing for 7,600 in scholarships worth $33 million that will be awarded in the spring.

About 1.4 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2015 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2013 PSAT; the nationwide pool of 16,000 semifinalists, representing less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.

For the next step of the competition, semifinalists submit an application including their academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received; as well as an essay, a recommendation from a high school official and evidence they have earned grades that confirm their outstanding PSAT performance.