Tuesday, October 21, 2014

SBISD National Merit Semifinalists and Related Awards Announced


Twenty-eight Spring Branch ISD high school seniors have been named as either National Merit Scholarship Program Semifinalists or National Hispanic Recognition Program award recipients, or honored in the National Achievement Scholar Program for African-American students. These district students rank among the nation’s best and brightest.

Fourteen students from four campuses – Memorial, Northbrook, Spring Woods and Stratford high schools – are National Merit Scholarship Program Semifinalists.  These seniors will be recognized publicly along with others during the Oct. 27 regular monthly meeting of the SBISD Board of Trustees.

This year’s Memorial High students named as National Merit Semifinalists are Rebecca Grekin, Sean Gu, Yuyan Cheryl Mai, William McNulty, Preston Quine, Skyler Quine, Kaela Todd, and Joanna Yang.  Read more about Preston and Skyler Quine >>

Northbrook High’s National Merit Semifinalist is Bethany Holder. At Spring Woods High, this year’s National Merit Semifinalist is Christopher Matias Hivnor.

Stratford High National Merit Semifinalists are Reese Davis, John Goss, David Humphrey and Sarah Nash.

Students become eligible for the national scholarship program when they take the PSAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test as juniors. Semifinalists represent less than 1 percent of the high school graduating class in Texas and rank as the nation’s highest scoring elite.

Semifinalists must now qualify for National Merit Finalist awards, which will be announced in spring semester 2015. They are eligible for numerous corporate and other scholarships. More than 16,000 students nationwide have been named semifinalists.

Thirteen SBISD students were named finalists in the annual National Hispanic Recognition program. These students, also known as National Hispanic Scholars, include Memorial High’s Presley Good, Rebecca Grekin, Daniel Jimenez, Saul Martinez, Sofia Morales-Bello, Miranda Ruzinsky and Conner Shrader.

At Spring Woods High, Henry Aguilar and Christopher Matias Hivnor were named a National Hispanic Recognition Program Scholar finalists.


At Stratford High, finalists are Julio Colby, Benjamin Fairchild, Javier Lehtinen, and Adrian Sanchez Lohff. Benjamin Fairchild graduated during the past summer as a three-year graduate.

To earn this highly regarded recognition, students must be of at least one-quarter Hispanic/Latino descent, attain a high performance level on the PSAT, and have a GPA of 3.0 or higher at the end of their junior year. About 5,000 students nationally now earn this recognition each year.

Three seniors were named National Achievement Scholars. The National Achievement Scholarship Program recognizes academically talented African-American students. Memorial High students earning this recognition are Megan McMillon and Hellen Wainaina. At Westchester Academy, senior Dakota Ransom was also named a National Achievement Scholar.

About 1,600 semifinalists in this category were named nationally. They will compete for 800 scholarship awards worth more than $2.5 million that will be issued in the spring, according to the program.

In addition to these honors, 43 district seniors have been awarded the distinction of the National Merit Commended recognition.

Nationally, about 34,000 of the high scorers on the PSAT/NMSQT are designated Commended Students. They are named on the basis of a nationally applied Selection Index qualifying score that may vary from year to year. This score is generally within the 96 percentile of all college-bound juniors.

Memorial High School is home to 31 National Merit Program Commended Students this year. They are Pierce Beyer, Natalie Dickman, Elizabeth Doykan, Carson Gartner, Abigail Glatman, Bailey Henkel, Leigh Hilford, Tiffany Hu, Farah Islam, Daniel Jimenez, Anuj Kadakia, Sehwa Kang, Da Eun Kim, Rebekah Koehn, Jordan Koeller, Christopher Koontz, Sergey Koryakin, Miller Kress, Justin Kwak, Christopher Lee, Malina Maharana, Matthew Marion, Mitch McAlister, Sabina Mehdi, Travis Miertschin, Carolyn Noel, James Robertson, Madison Tebbe, James Vaughan, Clayton Wiggins and Emma Winburne.

Also named National Merit Commended are Stratford High’s Kylen Chen-Troester, Joseph Fox, Riley Green, Erin Higgins, Kyle Mosby, Jong Min Park, Anna Powell, Timothy Purvis, Justin Todes and Erin Williams.

At Westchester Academy, seniors Mitchell Benson and Paige Williams won National Merit Commended recognition.

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