Two seniors have been named as Semifinalists and 37 were named as Commended Students from North Hunterdon and Voorhees High Schools in the 61st Annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Semifinalists are Stephanie Braddock from North Hunterdon High School and Daniel Shea from Voorhees High School.
The nationwide pool of Semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state. From the approximately 16,000 Semifinalists, about 15,000 are expected to advance to the Finalist level and in February they will be notified of this designation. Finalists will compete for National Merit $2500 Scholarships and various corporate and college sponsored awards.
Commended Students are: Madeline Andreas, Jacob Battipaglia, Brady Bean, Cameron Calv, Audrey Chester, Gillian Evers, Jason Fresolone, Jessica Graham, Cecelia Higgins, Abigail Johnson, Sirius Just, Claire Lee, Isabella Many, Matthew McDevitt, Christopher Mead, Kathleen Menezes, Gianna Porfano, Ryan Smith, Amy Sroka, Alexander Wong, Tiffany Yang, Benjamin York and Erin Yu from North Hunterdon High School; and Sam Ballai, Amy Bowsher, Soren Denlinger, Victoria Furka, John Gallagher, Andrew Gonzalez, Kim Graybeal, Raymond Martin, Morgan McCord, Alanna Porto, Ethan Schilke, Benjamin Sernas, Heather Thomasovich, and Robert Whitney from Voorhees High School.
This year, about 34,000 students throughout the country have been named as Commended Students for their exceptional academic promise. Although they will not continue in the 2016 competition for National Merit Scholarship awards, Commended Students place among the top five percent of more than 1.5 million students who entered the 2016 competition by taking the 2014 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQTÒ).