Fourteen of the 15 East Baton Rouge Parish School System’s (EBRPSS) students who made Semifinalist status in the fall of 2010 for the National Merit Scholarship Program competition are now Finalists.  In addition, all but one of the district’s five Semifinalists for the National Achievement Scholarship Program, also run by National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), are Finalists for that award.

Baton Rouge Magnet High School and McKinley High School walked away from this latest round of the local National Merit competition with 10 and four Finalists, respectively.  Baton Rouge Magnet High School had the most Semifinalists of any other public or private school in the Baton Rouge area when announced in the fall of 2010.

The National Merit Scholarship Finalists for the East Baton Rouge Parish School System are:
BATON ROUGE MAGNET HIGH SCHOOL
Baldwin, Erin A.
Ding, Jaime P.
Holmes, David M.
Kuhlmeier, Michael B.
Li, George T.
Lynch, Katherine E.
Moore, Justin J.
Patton, Joseph R.
Sarkar, Gargi
Turner, Paxton M.

McKINLEY HIGH SCHOOL
Clifton, Jesse
Hane, Andrew D.
Hane, Miller K.
Haque, Samiul
                                                       
The selection of some 8,400 Merit Scholarship winners from the group of more than 15,000 national Finalists is now in progress.  Beginning in April, the National Merit Scholarship Program will begin announcing the winners.  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 about half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title.

About 1.5 million juniors in some 22,000 high schools entered the 2011 National Merit
Scholarship Program by taking the 2009 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying
Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. 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.

To become a Finalist, a Semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by the high school principal, and earn sat scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test. The Semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application, which includes the student’s essay and information about the Semifinalist’s participation and leadership in school and community activities.

In regards to the National Achievement Scholarship Program by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, four African-American, EBRPSS students have been named 2010 Finalists in the 47th annual National Achievement Scholarship Program by the NMSC. 

The district’s National Achievement Scholarship Finalists are:
BATON ROUGE MAGNET HIGH SCHOOL
Holmes, David M.
Lomas, Danielle L.
Moore, Justin J.

McKINLEY HIGH SCHOOL
Taplin, Andre

All now have an opportunity to continue in the competition for about 800 Achievement Scholarship awards, worth more than $2.5 million in total, to be offered next spring. To be considered for a National Achievement Scholarship, Semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. About 80 percent of the Semifinalists were expected to attain Finalist standing, and more than half of the Finalists will win an Achievement Scholarship award.

The National Achievement Scholarship Program, conducted by NMSC, is a privately financed academic competition that operates without government assistance. It was initiated in 1964 to recognize academically promising African-American students throughout the nation and to provide scholarships to a substantial number of the most outstanding program participants.