Stafford Students Earn National Merit Scholarship Recognition

STAFFORD COUNTY, VA — Two students from Mountain View High School in Stafford County recently were named Commended Students in the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program. According to a news release from the division, Keith Mankin and Patrick Salvanera — both seniors at the school — received their letters of commendation from Dr. James Stemple, principal at Mountain View, and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

Additionally, Juliana Calvert, also a student at Mountain View High School, was named a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist earlier this month.

“Keith and Patrick are two examples, along with Juliana, of the great students here at Mountain View High School,” Stemple said in the release. “The entire Mountain View staff is continually impressed with the level of dedication our students put in to their academic pursuits.”

More than 1.5 million students entered the 2020 scholarship competition by completing the 2018 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Commended Students have demonstrated outstanding potential for academic success, placing among the top 50,000 scorers on this exam.

Mankin is currently considering the University of Virginia and Columbia University while Salvanera may attend the University of California Los Angeles or Massachusetts Institute of Technology next fall.