In addition, 10 other district seniors have won National Hispanic Scholar honors, and two seniors have been awarded the National Achievement Scholarship Award. These students will be recognized by the SBISD Board of Trustees during its regular monthly meeting on Oct. 22.
Based on their performance on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSATNMSQT) that is administered during the junior year, students may qualify for more than 8,300 National Merit Scholarships valued at more than $32 million.
About 1.5 million students took the assessment. This year’s Semifinalists – about 16,000 students nationwide – reflect the highest scoring test takers across Texas and other states. Final winners of the 2013 National Merit Scholarship will be announced next spring.
To qualify for these business and corporate scholarships, semifinalists must have an outstanding academic high school record, write an essay, be endorsed and recommended by high school officials, and earn qualifying high SAT scores. National Achievement Scholarships are issued in recognition of outstanding African-American student performance on the PSAT.
The National Hispanic Scholar Award recognizes scholastic excellence by students of Hispanic or Latino ancestry on the preliminary PSAT.
High school seniors honored this year in SBISD include:
National Merit Scholar Semifinalists
- Memorial High School – Emily R. Ackerman, Joy Y. Ahn, Maryam Amjadi, Casie Chen, Timothy M. Davis, Austin C. Espey, Marie C. Evans, Yezhou Feng, Andrew M. Frewer, Sang H. Ji, Dmitriy S. Khripkov, Min Woo Kim, Mary E. Schatzman, Paul W. Snow, Katherine F. Ustick, Tzu-Ming Yeh.
- Spring Woods High School – Parker J. Blome Stratford High School – Matthew J. Lastrapes, Elaine Lui, Harrison L. Vaporciyan.
- Westchester Academy for International Studies – Zachary D. Rejwan
National Achievement Scholar
- Memorial High School – Jessica Watts
- Westchester Academy – Destiny Lewis
National Hispanic Scholar
- Memorial High School – Emma Bravo, Benjamin Kroger, Katherine Parada, Karina Soto, and one additional student*
- Stratford High School – Stephen Martinez, Alexandra Napuri and Caroline Suchman
- Westchester Academy for International Studies – Dorian Granizo, David Kassir
* One student not named here by request.
SBISD Communications Dept Intern Kali Venable helped compile this report.