CHARLOTTE — Charlotte Catholic High School seniors Madison Huber and Cade MacQuarrie have been selected semifinalists in the 2017 National Merit Scholarship Competition based on last year’s PSAT scores. Selections are for scoring in the top 1 percent of all North Carolina juniors who took the PSAT last year.
Huber and MacQuarrie are among about 16,000 of this year’s National Merit Scholarship semifinalists nationwide. The 2016-’17 academic term marks the 62nd year of the prestigious National Merit program, which honors academically talented high school seniors. Of about 16,000 of the semifinalists, 15,000 are expected to advance to the finals, and about half of those will be named National Merit Scholars eligible for $33,000 in scholarship awards that will be awarded next spring.
Fifteen additional Charlotte Catholic seniors have been named Commended Students in the 2017 National Merit Scholarship Program. These students are recognized for exceptional academic promise demonstrated by their outstanding performance on the qualifying test used for program entry. They are: Uwade Akhere, Hank Borda, Bryan Borders, Jack Deering, Nick Derrico, Mickael Gallucci, Paul Gennettt, Jonathan Little, Lindsey Mahn, Kieran Mahoney, Devon Ngo, Luke Santschi, Jake Sheridan, Catherine Stevens and Grace Williams.
More than 1.6 million high school juniors from more than 22,000 high schools nationwide entered this year’s contest by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. The pool of semifinalists comprises less than 1 percent of all U.S. high school seniors and includes the highest scoring entrants in each state.
The 2016-’17 Merit Scholarship winners will be announced between April and July 2017. They will join more than 308,000 other distinguished students who have earned the National Merit Scholar title.
— Sally McArdle
GREENSBORO — Kindergarten classes from Our Lady of Grace School recently learned about fire safety while on a field trip to the local Fire Training Center.
— Aphton K. Lang