Schools

West Potomac Student Named National Merit Semifinalist

Nearly 230 semifinalists were named throughout Fairfax County Public Schools.

A West Potomac High School student has been named a National Merit semifinalist, according to Fairfax County Public Schools.

Student Laura Friese is the only semifinalist named from West Potomac. In all, 229 students from 19 high schools throughout Fairfax County Public Schools were named semifinalists by the 2013 National Merit Scholarship Corp.

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, which also serves as the Governor’s Regional School for Northern Virginia, has 146 semifinalists, the most of any school in the district.

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All semifinalists are eligible to compete for 8,300 National Merit Scholarship awards worth $32 million, to be awarded in spring 2013.

Approximately 16,000 high school seniors were named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists for 2013. More than 1.5 million juniors entered the 2013 National Merit program by taking the 2011 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which serves as the initial screen of program entrants.

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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.

Scholarship winners will be announced in spring 2013.

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