National Merit Scholarship: 27 winners from Washtenaw County

Posted on Wed, Jul 11, 2012 : 5:57 a.m.

National Merit Scholarship: 27 winners from Washtenaw County

By Danielle Arndt

All of the 2012 National Merit Scholarship Competition winners have been formally announced.

The NMSC is a nonprofit corporation that provides access to college funding for the nation's high school students. Twenty-seven students from Washtenaw County earned either a NMSC $2,500 award or a college- or corporate-sponsored award.

About 1.5 million high school juniors in nearly 22,000 high schools across the United States entered the 2012 National Merit competition when they took the 2010 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Last fall, approximately 16,000 semifinalists were named on a state representational basis in numbers proportional to each state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

Semifinalists were the highest-scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than one percent of the United State’s 12th-graders, according to a NMSC news release.

Semifinalists are asked to submit a detailed scholarship application that must include an essay and a detailed list of extracurricular activities, awards and leadership positions. Semifinalists also must have an “outstanding” academic record, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official and earn SAT scores that confirm the qualifying test performance.

About 15,000 students met these requirements and became National Merit finalists. However, not all receive scholarships.

The local teens that were among the nearly 8,300 students to receive scholarships are listed below.

College-sponsored merit scholarship winners:

Ann Arbor
Matthew J. Fligiel, Greenhills School
Northwestern University
Probable career field: Neuroscience Research/Statistics

Joshua V. Fons, Father Gabriel Richard High School
University of St. Thomas
Probable career field: Theology

Jordan Meiller, Skyline High School
Kalamazoo College
Probable career field: Writing

Thomas J. Orr, Pioneer High School
Michigan State University
Probable career field: Interactive Media Design

Nathaniel G. Sloan, Greenhills School
Kenyon College
Probable career field: Business

Chelsea
Daniel Patton, Chelsea High School
University of Chicago
Probable career field: Writing

Dexter
Amy R. Read, Dexter High School
Brigham Young University
Probable career field: Marine Biology

Saline
Heather A. Harmon, Saline High School
Michigan State University
Probable career field: International Relations

Corporate-sponsored merit scholarship winners:

Ann Arbor
Jonathan M. Ames, Skyline High School
Marsh & McLennan Companies
Probable career field: Engineering

Heather M. Jue-Wong, Skyline High School
AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals
Probable career field: Public Health

Jonathan M. Jue-Wong, Skyline High School
AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals
Probable career field: Journalism

National Merit $2,500 scholarship winners:

Ann Arbor
Jing Chai, Huron High School
Probable career field: Law

Amy Chang, Huron High School
Probable career field: Statistics

Julia H. Chen, Pioneer High School
Probable career field: Medicine

Charles I. Geronimus, Pioneer High School
Probable career field: Law

Alexander T. Hassan, Huron High School
Probable career field: Biomedical Engineering

Kathleen Huntzicker, Huron High School
Probable career field: Education (College Professor)

Christopher C. Owyang, Greenhills School
Probable career field: Political Science/Economics

Julia H. Rothchild, Pioneer High School
Probable career field: Undecided

Katherine E. Selwa, Greenhills School
Probable career field: Biology/Medicine

Aoxue Tang, Pioneer High School
Probable career field: Law

Rujia Zha, Huron High School
Probable career field: Chemistry

Jonathan L. Zhou, Huron High School
Probable career field: Environmental Science

Saline
Hayley A. Byrnes, Saline High School
Probable career field: Journalism/English

Aaron M. Mukerjee, Saline High School
Probable career field: Government Service

Superior Township
Marissa E. Thompson, Greenhills School
Probable career field: Education (College Professor)

Whitmore Lake
Hilker Trevor Herman, Dexter High School
Probable career field: Urban Planning

Staff reporter Danielle Arndt covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. Follow her on Twitter @DanielleArndt or email her at daniellearndt@annarbor.com.

Comments

Richard Dokas

Thu, Jul 12, 2012 : 12:43 a.m.

Voice of reason, you said"there are not any charter high schools in Ann Arbor. Nice try." I think that would come as a big surprise to Central Academy and Washtenaw Technical Middle College to find out that they don't exist - they do and are both located in Ann Arbor! BTW you might notice that this article was not titled Ann Arbor schools but Washtenaw County schools and when you stick to the subject of the article there are quite a few more H.S. but I will let you look it up. (I will help you here is the link:) http://www.charterschools.org/school-search?task=advsearch2&search_id=25938

Bob

Thu, Jul 12, 2012 : 12:27 a.m.

Voice of Reason - The headline does say Washtenaw County, not Ann Arbor; Saline, Dexter and Chelsea are also mentioned. Sadly, Ypsilanti and Willow Run are also missing . . .

dotdash

Wed, Jul 11, 2012 : 4:39 p.m.

A word of explanation about the difference between the corporate-sponsored awards (given to children of employees or enrolled in programs the corporations want to encourage), the college-sponsored awards (given only to kids who commit to that college) and the regular NM scholarships might be in order.

Richard Dokas

Wed, Jul 11, 2012 : 4:31 p.m.

Interesting, I don't see any from the charter schools. Wonder what that says?

A Voice of Reason

Wed, Jul 11, 2012 : 7:30 p.m.

Well, hard to have NMS from Charter Schools when there are not any charter high schools in Ann Arbor. Nice try.