Three UCS seniors rank among top one percent of high school students

Three UCS students are among the only 16,000 seniors nationally to be 2017 named National Merit semifinalists.

Elisabeth Pettibone, of Henry Ford II High School, and Atishay Singh and
Aditya Vageesh, of Stevenson High School, placed among the top one
percent of national high school students taking the Preliminary
SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

All three students also attend the Utica Center for Mathematics, Science and Technology.

More than 1.5 million students of the Class of 2017 entered the National
Merit Program by taking the 2015 Preliminary SAT/National Merit
Scholarship Qualifying Test.

To be selected as a semifinalist, students fulfilled the requirements to
enter the next round of the scholarship program which included having a
record of consistently high academic performance, being endorsed and
recommended by an official of their high school, earning SAT scores that
confirm their PSAT/NMSQT performance and writing an essay.

These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to
continue in the competition for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships
worth about $33 million that will be offered next spring. To be
considered for a Merit Scholarship® award, Semifinalists must fulfill
several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the
competition.

About 90 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist
standing, and about half of the Finalists will win a National Merit
Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title.