Friday, October 5, 2007

McKinney ISD High School students named National Merit Semi-Finalists

By Pegasus News wire

Several students named Commended, National Hispanic and National African American Recognized Students for exceptional academic accomplishments

High school students from McKinney Boyd High School, McKinney High School and McKinney North High School in the McKinney Independent School District were recently honored by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) for outstanding academic achievement and high scores on the PSAT test.

This is what having money looks like.

McKinney Boyd High School had two students selected as National Merit Semi-Finalists, four honored as Commended Students, one student receive National Hispanic Recognition and one student recognized as a National African American Scholar in the National Merit Program based on their PSAT scores in 2006.

Jeff Cameron and Laura Norman were named National Merit Semi-Finalists from McKinney Boyd High School while Robert Carpenter, Jennifer Koester, Alexander Ladd and Christopher Miller were honored as Commended Students. Ana Karen Madera received the National Hispanic Recognition for McKinney Boyd High School and Mohammed Dali received the National African American Recognition for placing in the top five percent of more than 140,000 students who identified themselves as African American students.

One student from McKinney High School was selected as a National Merit Semi-Finalist, nine were selected as Commended Students and two received the National Hispanic Recognition.

David McCoy was announced as a National Merit Semi-Finalist for McKinney High and Hannah Adams, Jordan Carmona, Amit Desai, Sarah Doty, William Dowell, Cedric Horvath, Austin Klinger, Melody Maxson and Mitchell Thomas were selected at Commended Students. Jordan Carmona and Stephanie Stefanski were named National Hispanic Recognized Students for McKinney High.

McKinney North High School had one student named as a National Merit Semi-Finalist, eight students selected as Commended Students and two students honored as National Hispanic Recognized Students.

Daniel Hooper was named a National Merit Semi-Finalist for McKinney North while Taylor Amadon, Lauren Essler, Augusta Gregory, Eric Hanley, Mirria Martin, Lauren Silver, Siddhartha Singh and Kathryn Walsh were named Commended Students. Alyson Firpi and Christian Olmeda were honored as National Hispanic Recognized Students.

Only 34,000 students nationwide were recognized as Commended Students from the more than 1.4 million students who took the exam. More than 196,000 high school students who identified themselves as Hispanic completed the PSAT test in 2006 with only 4,000 of those students recognized as National Hispanic Scholars.

Students who were selected as National Merit Semi-Finalists will continue through the scholarship process in an effort to be named National Merit Finalists. The NMSC will announce the National Merit Finalists in Feb. of 2008.

The NMSC is a not-for-profit organization that conducts two academic competitions for recognition and undergraduate scholarships. Each year, approximately 55,000 high school students are honored in the National Merit Program and the National Achievement Program and more than 10,500 of the most outstanding participants receive scholarships worth a total of $50 million for college undergraduate study.

For more information about the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, visit their website at http://www.nationalmerit.org/.

For more information about the McKinney Independent School District, contact Cody Cunningham, Assistant to the Superintendent for Communications at 469-742-4095 or by e-mail at cocunningham@mckinneyisd.net.

Source: MISD

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