9 Richland 1 Students Named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

Nine Richland One high school seniors are among the 194 South Carolina students who have been named semifinalists in the 2014 National Merit Scholarship Program.

Nationwide, more than 16,000 seniors are competing in this prestigious national program which awards scholarships to academically gifted students. They will vie for 8,000 scholarships worth more than $35 million.  Scholarship winners will be announced in the spring.

Richland One congratulates the following seniors for their selection as semifinalists, an honor which only 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors receive:

A.C. Flora High School

• Simran L. Mathews
• Samuel B. Miller
• Coryelle L. Pondy
• Mary E. Saine

Dreher High School

• John A. Andrews
• Jeremy A. Day
• Jinyu Gao
• Isabel K. Gwara
• Cameron N. Moreno

In addition to being National Merit semifinalists, these outstanding seniors have other exceptional academic accomplishments. Coryelle Pondy made a perfect score on the PSAT (Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test) last year. John Andrews made perfect scores on the reading and writing sections of the PSAT. Jeremy Day made a perfect score on the math section of the PSAT. Isabel Gwara earned perfect scores on the writing section of the PSAT and the reading and writing sections of the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test).

The National Merit Scholarship Program is an academic competition for recognition and college scholarships. Semifinalists are chosen based on high scores on the PSAT. There are three types of awards: National Merit $2,500 scholarships that are single-payment awards; corporate-sponsored Merit/Achievement awards that may be renewable for up to four years of undergraduate study or one-time awards; and college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards that are renewable for up to four years of undergraduate study.