Eight AHS Students Named Merit Semifinalists
Eight Allen High School students have been named as semifinalists in the 2014 National Merit® Scholarship Competition.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation named James A. Clynes, Matthew C. Dias, Brittany M. Hansen, Betty L. Huang, Justin S. Kong, Ian C. McVittie, Angela M. Olinger and Hunter A. Stevens as Semifinalists.

The students were among around 16,000 students recognized as semifinalists in the national competition. The students will have the opportunity to compete for one of some 8,300 Merit Scholarship awards, worth more than $32 million, in the spring.

To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, semifinalists must advance to the finalist level of the competition by fulfilling several requirements. About 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and approximately half of the finalists will be selected as Merit Scholarship winners, earning the Merit Scholar title.

All semifinalists must have a record of high academic performance, be endorsed and recommended by their school principal and earn SAT scores that confirm their earlier PSAT performance.

I have two reactions to this information, published this morning (9/15/13) in the DMN. First and foremost, congratulations to the 8 students recognized from Allen. Their performance is clearly exemplary, and best of luck to each in terms of further recognition and ultimate academic scholarship awards.

Second, and this is likely to ruffle feathers, but I was shocked to see that schools of a size comparable to Allen (PESH, PSHS, PW, Coppell) each identified between 2 and 3 times as many semifinalists. This is shocking to me, and leaves me to wonder if this year was an aberration, or are there other reasons? The number just seemed low in relation to the size of our high school, especially when compared to local peers.

I think the ISD could do a better job of identifying high achieving students and offering more programs for them. I would like to see programs where certain high achieving students get additional tutoring for PSAT and other exams and a separate class of college counseling. We need to get more of our high achievers into top tier colleges and in order to do that they need specialized counseling starting their sophomore year.

Although I really don't know how that would fly in a public ISD.

I think the ISD could do a better job of identifying high achieving students and offering more programs for them.

I figured with the depressing Stadium postings, we could use one positive post today:

From the Allen ISD website:

Two AHS Students Win National Merit Scholarships
Allen High School seniors Angela Olinger and Justin Kong have been named 2014 National Merit $2,500 Scholarship winners.

Olinger and Kong were chosen, along with 2,500 others, from a talent pool of more than 15,000 finalists in the 2014 National Merit Scholarship Program sponsored by the National Merit Scholar Corporation (NMSC).

National Merit $2,500 Scholarship winners are judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills, and potential for success in rigorous college studies. The number of winners named in each state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the nation’s graduating high school seniors.

The scholars were selected by a committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors, who appraised a substantial amount of information submitted by both the Finalists and their high schools: the academic record, including difficulty level of subjects studied and grades earned; scores from two standardized tests; contributions and leadership in school and community activities; an essay written by the Finalist; and a recommendation written by a high school official.