News

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Santa Barbara School Districts’ National Merit Program Finalists and Scholar for 2010

This year, the Santa Barbara School Districts have 13 Finalists and one Scholar in the National Merit Scholarship Program. This year’s competition began with an initial screening in October 2008 when more that 1.5 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Last fall, the highest-scoring participants in each state, representing less than one percent of the state’s seniors, were named Semifinalists and these 16,000 students had the opportunity to continue in the competition. The field was then narrowed to approximately 15,000 students who met a number of requirements to advance to the Finalist level of competition.

While these students are academic leaders at their schools, what is yet more remarkable is that each of them contributes so much to their school beyond academics. Several are varsity athletes, others are co-editors or reporters for the school newspaper or involved in the production of the school bulletin. In this group are leaders in student government. While they are publicly acknowledged for their academic achievement, they are to be commended for their significant contributions to their respective school community.

Dos Pueblos High School National Merit Finalists
Left to right: Anjian Wu, Rashi Singh, Jeanmarie Gonzalez, Ellen Feldman, Sky Adams (not pictured: Nicholas Su)

DOS PUEBLOS HIGH SCHOOL

• Sky Adams is heading for Brown University, majoring in computer science.
• Ellen Feldman will attend Viterbi School of Engineering at U.S.C. as a Trustee Scholar. Ellen will major in electrical engineering with a minor in music.
• Jeanmarie Gonzalez will be attending U.C. Berkeley and her major is undeclared in the College of Letters and Science.
• Rashi Singh will attend U.C.L.A. and major in pre-med.
• Nicholas Su will attend Stanford University. He has not yet declared a major.
• Anjian Wu will attend the California Institute of Technology. He is thinking about majoring in electrical engineering and perhaps business as well.

San Marcos High School National Merit Finalists John Vance and Eugene Wang

SAN MARCOS HIGH SCHOOL

• John Vance will attend U.C. Berkeley and major in mechanical engineering.
• Eugene Wang will attend U.C.L.A. and major in biology.

Santa Barbara High School National Merit Finalists and Scholar
Left to right: Ken Myers, Rebecca Neilsen-Robbins, Madison Taylor, Trevor Venturelli (not pictured: Brian Joseff, Amber Rockwood)

SANTA BARBARA HIGH SCHOOL

• Brian Joseff has accepted admission to Dartmouth.
• Ken Myers will attend UCLA and plans to major in business/law.
• Amber Rockwood will attend Stanford University and major in earth systems.
• Madison Taylor will attend the University of Chicago. She has not decided on a major yet, but probably will choose biochemistry, or another major related to science.
• Trevor Venturelli will be attending U.C. Berkeley as an English major.
• Rebecca Neilsen-Robbins will attend Harvard University and double major in English/pre-med. Rebecca is the recipient of a National Merit Scholarship Corporation’s $2,500 scholarship award and as such she is a National Merit Scholar.