Students receive National Merit Scholar Semifinalists

By Kellie Mullin
Staff Writer

Mira Costa seniors Stephanie Caridad, Milo Davis, Ryan Gulland, Matthew Wenner, and Austin Yamada became National Merit Scholar semifinalists on Sept. 11 after placing in the top one percent of all California students who took the Practice Scholastic Aptitude Test last October.

The PSAT is the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying test. The National Merit Scholarship Program is an academic competition for high school students throughout the United States based on PSAT scores.

There are approximately 1.5 million entrants every year. Usually, there are about 15,000 semifinalists, 8,000 of whom become finalists and receive a scholarship. Once semifinalists are chosen, they have to complete an application which shows their academic achievement.

“Receiving my score and knowing I would qualify for National Merit was really exciting,” Gulland said.
Any junior who takes the test in October qualifies for the National Merit Scholarship.

“The National Merit Scholarship wasn’t on my radar when I took the PSAT,” Caridad said. “Receiving my score and being named a semifinalist was a mind-boggling surprise.”

In order to succeed at such a high level, Costa’s semifinalists used different methods of study. For some, minimal test preparation was required, while others studied extensively.

“My end goal for the PSAT was to qualify for the National Merit,” Gulland said. “I did over ten practice tests for the English and Critical Reading sections.”

In February of 2014, the National Merit Scholarship Foundation will notify the semifinalists by mail if they have been chosen to be finalists. Finalists will be presented with a certificate from the National Merit Scholarship Program and are then automatically considered for either the National Merit $2,500 scholarship or the Corporate-Sponsored Merit scholarship, which awards between $500 to $10,000 a year
Another option is the College-Sponsored Merit scholarship, but the student must attend a college that offers this type of scholarship money to be considered.

“My hope is that being a semi-finalist will open doors for me further down the line when I make my final college decision,” Caridad said