Hawken seniors named Nat`l Merit Finalists

Eight Hawken seniors were recently named National Merit Finalists. Harrison Adams, Kenan Diab, Erica Dorfman, Rebecca Maurer, J. McNamara, Cari Meisel, Amanda Warren and Hannah Whitehead earned the distinction by scoring in the nation`s top one percent of students taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Over 1.4 million students took the test. The Hawken students are in the running for 8,200 Merit Scholarships that will be awarded based on their academic records, information about Hawken`s curricula and grading system, test scores, written recommendations, information about their activities and leadership and an essay. Finalists have the chance of the winning National Merit Scholarships, Corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarships or College-sponsored Merit Scholarships. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation, which administers the competition, is over 50 years old and seeks, according to its Web site, \"to identify and honor academically talented U.S. high school students, to stimulate increased support for their education and to provide efficient and effective scholarship program management for organizations that wish to sponsor college undergraduate scholarships.\" Throughout its history, NMSC has provided 313,000 scholarships totaling nearly $1.3 billion and recognized 3 million students.