Rosemount Student Named National Merit Finalist

Editor's note: The following is from a news release from the school district.

All 16 District 196 high school seniors who were named semifinalists in the fall have now been named finalists in the 2011-12 National Merit Scholarship Program. As finalists, they are eligible to compete for the more than 8,300 merit scholarships, totaling more than $34 million, which will be awarded this spring.

Rosemount's Scott Miller is among those finalists.

The other finalists from District 196 are Maren Loe of Apple Valley High School; Alexander Anderson, Nathaniel Bonshire, William Thomas and Carl Winge of Eagan High School; and Reid Anderson, Mikyla Carpenter, Lamisa Chowdhury, Nicholas Havlicek, Jane Kagan, Zane Larwood, Nitin Prasad, Andrew Solfest, Mariel Supina and Samantha Zarate of Eastview High School.

Finalists will be notified in the spring if they are selected to receive one of the National Merit post-secondary scholarships, which are supported and awarded by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, businesses, and colleges and universities nationwide.

Students are selected for the National Merit and Achievement programs each fall based on their scores on the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which they take as juniors. Approximately 1.5 million students in nearly 22,000 U.S. high schools took the qualifying test last school year. Students who score in the top 1 percent of students nationwide are selected as semifinalists and can then submit additional information to be considered as a finalist. Students who score in the top 5 percent of students nationally are named commended students; 36 District 196 students earned commended status in this year's National Merit program and were recognized in the fall.