Earlier this September, four Linsly seniors were recognized as National Merit Scholarship Program Semifinalists. Earning this accomplishment are Rocco D’Aquila, Caroline Higginbottom, Dylan Lucas, and Olivia Rosenthal. To become a semifinalist, students must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write a message, and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test, according to the National Merit Scholarship Program. Furthermore, these students’ scores on their PSAT had to be 9-14 points higher than local schools due to Linsly being in the U.S. boarding school selection process.
Because of this score cutoff, Dylan explains, “I was a little surprised by the news because I did not know what the score index cutoff was to qualify. I knew I did well, but I didn’t know if my score would be enough to reach the qualifying score, especially since Linsly is in the more difficult boarding school category. I was very excited when I heard, and I was proud of myself for the achievement.”
The students’ hard work translated to their high PSAT scores.
Caroline states, “We reviewed a lot of the material in classes, and I also took some practice tests. I took note of the areas I was weakest in and reviewed the material in them specifically.”
Now these achieving seniors will need to complete the next steps in order to possibly qualify as a finalist for the scholarship.
Olivia details, “The next steps are to submit the National Merit Finalist application, which consists of listing extracurricular activities, an essay, along with other information. The application is due by October 9th, so I have been working on finishing the application so I can submit it.”
Overall, if these seniors qualify as finalists, they could then be awarded, along with other finalists, 6,870 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $26 million.
Rocco reflects on how he was able to reach this point of applying to be a finalist, “I think that Linsly gave me the ability to learn inside and outside of the classroom, which translated to a good test score.”
Congratulations students, and good luck as you all are finishing up the application process to become finalists!
By: Elaina Pusz
