Pottstown's OJR, The Hill School Have National Merit Scholar Semifinalists Named

POTTSTOWN, PA — Two Pottstown area high schools jointly had five National Merit Scholarship semifinalists named in September.

Owen J. Roberts High School West had four semifinalists named and The Hill School had one semifinalist.

The semifinalist list comes after high school juniors enter the 2022 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2020 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors and 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.

A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT® or ACT® scores that confirm the student's earlier performance on the qualifying test.

From the approximately 16,000 semifinalists, about 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist level, and in February they will be notified of this designation. All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from this group of finalists. Merit Scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference.

The students who are National Merit Scholarship semifinalists, by their high schools are:

The Hill School
Jerry Li

Owen J. Roberts High School
Logan E. Cheney
Grayson J. Kurth
Praneeth V. Kutcherlapati
Morgan M. Weaver

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