Seniors Ibuki Iwasaki and Luigia Than have qualified as semifinalists in the 63rd annual National Merit Scholarship Program.
The students, who have shown outstanding academic talent, are among
16,000 high school students nationwide who were awarded the distinction
by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. They represent the top 1
percent of students from across the country with the highest scores on
the qualifying Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying
Test.
These academically talented students took the qualifying test in 2016
along with approximately 1.6 million other juniors from across the
country. They are now in the running for scholarships worth more than
$32 million.
Both young ladies are accomplished and well-rounded students. Than plays
cello, Iwasaki plays violin – and each are proud of the scientific
research experiences they took part in over the summer. Than learned
coding as part of her work at the Garcia Center for Polymers at Stony
Brook University and Iwasaki analyzed data on cosmic rays at Brookhaven
National Laboratory.
An additional four seniors from the high school were recognized by the
NMSC as Commended Students for their performance on the qualifying test
and their exceptional academic promise. They are Eli Doyle, Matthew
Pitko, Joseph Samara and Michael Smith.
National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced in the spring of 2018.