13 Students awarded title of National Merit Semifinalist
National Merit is an organization that provides scholarships to seniors in each state that score in the upper 99th percentile on the PSAT during their junior year. This year, OHS has 13 seniors that have been named National Merit Semifinalists.
OHS seniors Anneke Buskes, Siena Cizdziel, Jackson Dear, Marawan Elgohry, Eve Gershon, Meredith Goza, Preston Hooker, Bozidar-Brannan Kovachev, Jack Ligon, Maggie Livingston, Gillian Meyers, Claire Pearson, and Sydney Rester have achieved the title of National Merit Semifinalists due to their work on the PSAT.
“National Merit is a recognition that is done by each state, so it varies by each state, and each year, that threshold of where students score on the PSAT varies,” Principal Chandler Gray said. “They take the top one percent of students. The top one percent of students that score on the PSAT, they get honored as National Merit Semifinalist.”
While the National Merit Organization has been giving these titles out each year for many years, this is the largest group of semifinalists OHS has ever had and is the second most in the state behind MSMS (Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science). While the number of National Merit Semifinalists from OHS has increased over the years, it can still vary as the years go on, according to Gray.
“It depends on the class, and it also depends on where that range is because it is a fluctuating number, the top one percent,” Gray said. “One score this year may not make national merit next year. That range can change each year. The interesting part is your national merit ability is somewhat dependent on how other people around the state score as well.”
While students have different ways of preparing for the PSAT, one way that has proven to be successful in the past couple of years, according to Gray, is the PSAT Prep course taught by math teacher Walter Freeman, that OHS offers.
“We go over the four sections of the PSAT. We really don’t focus on the content material because these are bright kids and they already have the content,” Freeman said. “So, we just focus on exposing them to the test, so for the most part, they just work through practice tests and we grade them and they go over and just correct their mistakes, try to learn from them, try to figure out what skills they don’t know, what they need to improve on.”
While the PSAT Prep course is fairly new to OHS, Freeman has experience teaching ACT Prep, so he has figured out how to best prepare students for the PSAT.
“I’ve been working with ACT for about 10 years now, and I’m really good at what I do now. I know the test backwards and forwards. I know how it should be mapped out time wise. If you ask me anything about the ACT, I can answer you,” Freeman said. “The SAT I haven’t spent as much time with, but as I teach this several semesters now, I’m learning the test more and more. I’m kind of figuring out exactly what you need to know and what you don’t need to know, what math topics are important, what’s not going to be on the test.”
Freeman sees his PSAT Prep class as a beneficial opportunity for students since they get 45-50 minutes a day put towards strictly studying for the PSAT, and he helps them by providing them with that time and materials.
“The way I approach is you have 45 minutes a day to set aside for practice for this test. Who’s going to go home and prep every single day? Probably no one,” Freeman said. “It’s such a blessing of them to have that practice time. I gave them time and materials to practice.”
While being named National Merit Semifinalists will help the 13 seniors as they apply for college, this is just the first step for these students as they continue their journey to National Merit Finalist, which they will find out if they qualified for in the spring.
“We have to get recommendations. We have to write an essay. We have to fill out all the stuff and take the SAT,” Livingston said. “I take the SAT, which is one of the requirements, in October, and then, we find out in January.”
As these semifinalists move on in the process, OHS juniors have the opportunity to take the PSAT next month, so that they can possibly achieve what these 13 did this year.
“Study for it, prepare for it, but understand it is not the only chance you have. I think by having some perspective there it helps kind of relax you a little bit,” Gray said. “Obviously you want to prepare as much as you can leading up to it, don’t cram for it.”