Last fall, 28 students in Naperville School District 203 were named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists.

This year, 28 students from Naperville North High School alone achieved the honor, as did 26 students from Naperville Central High School.

The grand total of 54, which is nearly double the number of National Merit Scholarship semifinalists from a year ago, is the most in district history.

And, even though 10 to 20 students each from Naperville North and Naperville Central are annually named semifinalists, this year’s record-breaking total came as a complete surprise to District 203 administrators.

“Color me E for elated,” said Superintendent Alan Leis, who added he’s never seen such a jump.

National Merit Scholarship Corporation officials announced today the names of approximately 16,000 semifinalists in its 52nd annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Ninety of those academically talented high school seniors, all of whom will have opportunities to continue in the competition for some 8,200 scholarships worth a total of $33 million, are enrolled in Naperville-area schools, including Benet Academy (16), Neuqua Valley High School (14), and Waubonsie Valley High School (four), or are home-schooled in Naperville (two).

But the 54 students from Naperville North and Naperville Central comprise more than half of that total, and account for roughly 8 percent of the semifinalists honored in the state.

More than 1.4 million juniors in nearly 21,000 high schools entered the 2007 National Merit Program by taking the 2005 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, which represents less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

Leis said this year’s achievement reflects positively on everyone involved in making it happen - students, their parents and teachers, the district and the community that supports it.

“You don’t get these things in isolation,” he said.

Naperville North Principal Ross Truemper echoed those sentiments.

“When students achieve at this level, whether it is one or it’s 54, there’s a combination of things at play there,” he said.

But the key, he said, is that these particular students engaged in their educational opportunities and took the test seriously.

“This is a great class of kids that has invested in what they have available to them,” he said.

That said, there was nothing in this class’ profile that could have predicted the sudden surge in students named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists, said Truemper and Naperville Central Principal Jim Caudill.

“Is this year’s senior class any sharper that the others? I don’t think so,” Caudill said.

What Caudill does think is that these seniors have been more encouraged to challenge themselves and take more advanced placement courses since Leis arrived in the district three years ago, and that this effort is starting to show dividends.

Caudill said 736 students took AP tests this year, compared to 641 last year. Even though more students took the tests, the average score went up this year from 3.49 on a 5-point scale to 3.79.

“I think that more kids now are getting the confidence that they can take AP classes,” Caudill said. “And I think that this immersion into more challenging courses, yeah, there’s no doubt it’s paying off.”

Leis, however, said the district won’t know for several years whether to keep expecting these sorts of numbers, but he does believe that, by continuing to “raise the bar,” it is “on the right track.”

“I thoroughly believe that when you raise expectations for students, they respond in terms of achievement,” he said.

As for the semifinalists announced today, in order for them to be considered for a National Merit Scholarship award, they must advance to the finalist level of the competition by fulfilling several requirements. About 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and approximately half of the finalists will be selected as National Merit Scholarship winners, earning the National Merit Scholar title.

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Thursday, September 14, 2006 at 3:44 pm and is filed under Education News, Scholarship. Tags: Education News, Scholarship, Student, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.