PHOTO COURTESY OF BYRAM HILLS SCHOOL DISTRICT
The school year at Byram Hills High School started off with good news. Seven seniors at the high school were named semifinalists in the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program.
The students were Alan Chang, Joshua Freedman, Elyse Kanner, Emma Lucchino, David McDaniels, Jonah Schwam and Nicole Tissot.
“We are very proud of these students for this accomplishment,” Principal Christopher Walsh said. “It’s always great to have our students highlighted on a national level, and to have seven of our students ranked nationally speaks to the tremendous quality of education and support that we have here at Byram Hills.”
The Byram Hills students are among approximately 16,000 semifinalists, academically talented students who represent less than 1 percent of all high school seniors in the country and include the highest-scoring entrants from each state, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation said in a release.
They were chosen from more than 1.6 million high school juniors in about 22,000 schools across the country who took the 2017 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.
More than 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to earn finalist standing, and about half of those will win a scholarship and the Merit Scholar title. The students are competing for 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $31 million, awards that will be announced in the spring and summer.