From staff reports
Four students from Beaufort High School have been announced as semifinalists in the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program and will advance to the next level of competition.
Selected as national semifinalists were William Keyserling, Alexander Thomas, Nathan Tran, and James Willis.
These students entered the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program competition by taking the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. They are part of the nationwide pool of semifinalists that includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state, placing them in the top one percent of all U.S. high school seniors.
As semifinalists, they will compete with more than 16,000 national finalists for 7,140 college scholarships worth nearly $28 million.
“These are … extraordinary students,” Beaufort County School District Superintendent Frank Rodriguez said in a news release. “It’s great to see more and more of our students recognized each year, and I am confident these outstanding scholars will represent Beaufort County exceptionally well in the next phases of this national competition.”
In order to become a finalist, each semifinalist and an official for their high school must submit a detailed application that provides information about the student’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards. In addition, each semifinalist must be endorsed and recommended by an official from their high school, write an essay, and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirm the student’s earlier score on the qualifying test.
The 2024 National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced between April and July. Scholarship recipients will join nearly 375,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.
