On October 10th, all WCS juniors took the PSAT. The PSAT is given as a practice SAT exam, along with the NMSQT – The National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.
Did you know that in just the last ten years, WCS has had two National Merit Scholarship qualifiers and finalists? And why is that so impressive? Over 4 million students take the PSAT every school year, and The National Merit Scholarship Corporation uses PSAT/NMSQT Selection Index scores as an initial screen of approximately 1.6 million of those students to enter the National Merit Scholarship program each year. Of those qualifying entrants, only about 16,000 of the high scorers, representing less than .5% of the nation’s high school graduating seniors, will qualify as National Merit Semifinalists. The list of Semifinalists each year is then whittled down to an even smaller number of National Merit Finalists.
Students who become NMSQT finalists generally have a full-ride to the university of their choice! Both semifinalist Ryan Clarke (class of ’09) and finalist Thomas Donica (class of ’16) chose to continue their educations at Liberty University on scholarships. We are thankful we can help give our students an opportunity to achieve their dreams!
Talon Times 