2011 National Merit and National Achievement Scholarship Semifinalists

36 students earn recognition

September 15, 2010 —The names of the National Merit and National Achievement Scholarship semifinalists were released Thursday, September 9 by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation of Evanston, Ill. Twenty-nine Phillips Academy students have been named National Merit semifinalists and seven Phillips Academy students have been named National Achievement semifinalists.

Phillips Academy’s 2011 National Merit semifinalists are Daniel Aronov (Andover, Mass.), Peter Bang (Seoul, South Korea), Wenyu Cao (Belle Mead, N.J.), Jane Chen (Greenville, N.C.), Rona Choo (Beaverton, Ore.), Catherine Cleveland (Waterford, Va.), David Field ’10 (Andover, Mass.), Luke Hansen (Hanover, N.H.), Aazim Jafarey (Andover, Mass.), Nathan Johnson (Andover, Mass.), Nikita Lamba (Mumbai, India), Stephanie Liu (East Brunswick, N.J.), Michelle Ma (Corona, Calif.), Andrew Mitchell (Ridgefield, Conn.), Liam Murphy (Burlington, Vt.), Yerin Pak (Seoul, South Korea), Elizabeth Parr (Greenville, S.C.), Kishan Patel (Andover, Mass.), Aube Rey-Lescure (Shanghai, China), Sonya Schoenberger (Albany, Calif.), Winfield Shambaugh (Portland, Maine), Max Silverstein (Middletown, Md.), Kevin Song (Green Brook, N.J.), Samuel Teicher (Warriors Mark, Pa.), Amanda Wang (London, U.K.), Jessica Weng (Katy, Texas), Christine Whalen (San Juan Capistrano, Calif.), Catherine Wiener (Greenwich, Conn.), and Julia Zorthian (Greenwich, Conn.).

The 29 students are eligible to go to the next stage of the competition for 8,400 Merit Scholarship awards. Finalists will be announced in the spring. Approximately 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to reach the finalist level, and half of these will likely be selected as Merit Scholarship winners, earning the Merit Scholar title, and the $2,500 scholarship. More than 1.5 million juniors across the United States entered the 2011 National Merit Program by taking the 2009 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). The nationwide pool of semifinalists, which represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

Phillips Academy’s 2011 National Achievement semifinalists are Jeannine Anderson (Columbia, Mo.), Jordan Bailey (Las Vegas, Nev.), Aniebiet Ekpa (Houston, Texas), Oriekose Idah (Rolling Hills Estates, Calif.), Margot Pinckney (Clyde Hill, Wash.), Amber Quinones (Brooklyn, N.Y.), and Katharine Taylor-Mighty (Roslindale, Mass.).

The seven students are among 1,600 black American high school seniors selected from an original pool of 160,000 entrants for their exceptional performance on the 2009 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Qualifying test (PSAT/NMSQT). The finalists, who will be named this spring, must demonstrate a record of high academic performance over the course of their high school career, as well as earn similarly high SAT scores. There are approximately 800 Achievement Scholarship awards, worth some $2.6 million, to be offered in spring 2011.

Roughly 1,300 semifinalists are expected to advance to the finalist level. From the finalists, approximately 800 Achievement Scholar awardees will be chosen based on their abilities, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies. Every finalist will compete for one of the 700 National Achievement $2500 scholarships. One hundred additional scholarships, which are underwritten by different corporate and business sponsors, will be awarded to students who meet criteria as designated by the grantors.

Congratulations to all.