Three Hightstown High School seniors have been named 2016 National Merit Scholarship program semifinalists.
They are Timothy J. Aveni, Abigail Nickerson and Swetha Subramaniam. Thy now have the opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,400 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $32 million that will be offered next spring.
About 1.5 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2016 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2014 Preliminary SAT/NMSQT, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of Semifinalists, representing 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.
The three students were recognized for their achievements at the Oct. 19 board of education meeting.
Fourteen other students were named Commended Students in the 2016 National Merit Scholarship Program. They were also recognized at the school board meeting.
They include Cheyenne Astarita, Thomas Cuba, Virpartap S. Grewal, Syed Mehdi A. Husaini, Brian Ma, Calvin F. McKay, Ritheshkumar S. Neelamagam Jai C. Patel, Emily G. Ryer, Vatsal Shah, Niranjan Shankar, Namratha Sivakumar, Jay G. Vaingankar and Madhir Vyas.
About 34,000 Commended Students throughout the nation are being recognized for their exceptional academic promise. Although they will not continue in the 2016 competition for National Merit Scholarship awards, Commended Students placed among the top five percent of more than l.5 million students who entered the 2016 competition by taking the 2014 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT©).
Other students cited by the board include seniors Jay Vaingankar and Mehdi Husaini for placing sixth in the nation out of 10 possible places in “entrepreneurship” at the Future Business Leaders of American National Leadership Conference June 29 thorough July 2 in Chicago.
The two participated in the regional competition in January and advanced to the state competition where they placed first in New Jersey. In the national competition, they competed against the top state qualifiers from high school FBLA chapters from all 50 states.
