This year, Poway High had five students who did extraordinarily on their PSAT and became semifinalists for the National Merit Scholarship Award. These students included seniors Donovan Bizjack, Landan Chu, Elizabeth Gregg, Megan Kirschbaum, and Gabriel Stewart.
The National Merit website describes the National Merit Scholarship Award as, “An annual academic competition among high school students for recognition and college undergraduate scholarships that began in 1955.”
Finalists compete with each other for a 2,500 dollar scholarship, though semifinalists do not receive anything if they don’t move on.
This is still an amazing accomplishment to add to college applications and shows that this student is a hard worker.
Every year, millions of high school juniors and seniors take the PSAT.
The Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test, to assess students’ knowledge before they take the SAT, is also the only way to qualify for the National Merit Scholarship Award.
To compete for semi-finalist acknowledgment and a scholarship, every competitor must score in the top 16,000 students.
The next step for these students is becoming a finalist, the top 15,000 semifinalists. They will be announced in February.
Then in March of 2025, the winners will be announced, which will only include about 6,800 students.
“If you win you will be notified that you have received one of three types of National Merit Scholarships: a National Merit $2,500 dollar scholarship, a corporate-sponsored scholarship, or a college-sponsored scholarship, after which you will be announced to the public via news media,” Chu said.
For Chu, receiving this scholarship has always been one of his biggest goals and he has put countless hours of work and effort into this desired result.
When asked how it felt to be a runner-up for this incredible opportunity Chu said, “I was honored and overjoyed. The accolade reassured me that the fruits of my labor were coming to fruition after years of dedication and perseverance in honing my academic foundation.”
As captain of the Varsity Golf team, Titan Ambassador, and an active member in Peer Counseling, Chu stays very busy.
Chu stays focused on prioritizing time management and consistent practice to keep himself on a steady productive road when it comes to his academics.
For Elizabeth Gregg, while this had always been a goal she still described her effort as an exciting surprise.
Gregg’s advice for anyone who is planning to work towards this honor, is to spend your extra time wisely.
“Start studying early and use the different resources that college boards specifically provide, because those are very similar to the real test questions,” Gregg said.
The college board website can be easily searched online and provides multiple overviews of the PSAT, as well as Bluebook and Khan Academy practice test opportunities.