News

Thursday, May 28, 2009

National Hispanic Recognition Program

In their junior year, students take the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which qualifies them to enter competitions for prestigious scholarships and participate in recognition programs, such as the National Hispanic Recognition Program. Students must be at least one-quarter Hispanic/Latino, meet the PSAT/NMSQT cutoff score for their state, and achieve above a certain grade point average. Annually, nearly 5,000 of the highest-scoring students (from a nationwide total of more than 200,000 high school juniors) who take the test are identified in the National Hispanic Recognition Program. This year, four of these students are from our district.

• Karen Villegas, Santa Barbara High School. Karen will attend Harvard and major in International Relations and Environmental Policy.
• Rafaell Rozendo, San Marcos High School. Rafaell will attend Gordon College.
• Dos Pueblos High School’s Katie De Heras will attend Vassar College and major in English. Also from Dos Pueblos High School is Alejandro Veloz. Alejandro will attend UCLA and major in electrical engineering

National Hispanic Scholars (left to right): Karen Villegas, Alejandro Veloz, and Katie De Heras (not pictured, Rafaell Rozendo)