Strongsville Has 4 National Merit Commended Students

STRONGSVILLE, OH — Four Strongsville High School students have been named National Merit Scholarship Corporation Commended Students. About 34,000 students nationwide earned the distinction Commended Student this year.

“We congratulate and are extremely proud of these four Strongsville High School students for being recognized as Commended Students in the National Merit Scholarship Program. To be among the top 50,000 students is an amazing accomplishment, but more importantly, these four are quality representatives of the well-rounded students learning and growing daily at Strongsville High School,” said Mark Smithberger, principal at Strongsville High School.

The four Commended Strongsville students are: Anna Brant, Andreea Ciobanu, George Kinney, and IanMcGreal. They join the district's nine National Merit Semifinalists, who were announced in mid-September. (To stay up to date on these stories, subscribe to the Patch Strongsville newsletter. As news breaks and the story develops, you will be the first to receive updates from Patch.)

The Commended Student status is awarded based off student performance on both the PSAT and SAT. That means approximately 1.6 million students nationwide entered the National Merit Scholarship competition. Commended Students represent the top 5 percent of student performances on those tests.

The district's nine Semifinalists are Christina Fogwell, Jacqueline Foley, James Foley, Erika Lee, Satya Nayagam, Shyam Polaconda, Hannah Schmidt, Suraj Srinivasan and Rosemary Zaleski. Those nine students will have the opportunity to compete awards offered next spring as well as scholarships offered through colleges and corporations.

Photo from Strongsville Schools