Two Conard High School students have earned finalist designations in the prestigious scholarship competitions.
Alec Ferguson-Hull (left) and Huda Samakaab have reached Finalist status in prestigious national scholarship competition. Photo credit: Ronni Newton (file photo)
By Ronni Newton
Conard High School senior Alec Ferguson-Hull has been named a National Merit Scholarship Finalist, and senior Huda Samakaab is a Finalist in the National Achievement Scholarship Competition.
Decisions about awarding of scholarship money for both competitons will be announced this spring.
Alec applied early decision and was accepted to Bowdoin, and will begin his studies there this fall.
About the programs:
National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists have the opportunity to compete for 7,600 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $33 million that will be offered next spring. To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, Semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition.
About 90 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and more than half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.
Semifinalists are the highest scorers in each of the 50 states, and scored among the top 1 percent of the approximately 1.4 million juniors who took the PSAT test in the fall of 2013.
The National Achievement Scholarship Program is conducted by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, and is a privately financed competiiton established in 1964 to provide recognition for outstanding Black American high school students. Approximately 1,600 students (1 percent of those who entered the competition) qualified as semifinalists based on the PSAT test in the fall of 2013, and have the opportunity to advance inthe Achievement Scholarship competition.
Approximately 80 percent of the Semifinalists will be named Finalists and more than half of the Finalists will recdeive National Achievement Scholarships.
