Lakeside High Student Wins National Achievement Scholarship

A student is among the few from Georgia who won a National Merit Scholarship awarded to black students this year.

Erica L. Byas-Smith, a senior, is the only student from a school in the North Druid Hills-Briarcliff area to win an Achievement Scholarship. She is one of about 800 students honored with the award nationwide and one of 160,000 students who entered the 2011 program when they took their PSAT as juniors in 2009.

Finalists were chosen based on their record of consistently high academic performance, a recommendation from an official at their high school and earning an SAT score that confirmed their performance on the PSAT.

The scholarship is a one-time payment of $2,500.

On her application, Byas-Smith listed "foreign service" as her probable career field.