Huntington Senior a National Merit Finalist
Conner Davis, one of the top members of Huntington High School's Class of 2011, has been named a finalist in this year's National Merit scholarship program.
Mr. Davis is one of just 15,000 national finalists in the program. A total of 8,400 merit scholar winners will come from this distinguished group. Honorees will begin receiving scholarship offers in March.
"Conner has been a very serious and exceptional student throughout his high school career," Principal Carmela Leonardi said. "He loves learning and will pursue academic interests with his teachers as well as independently. His teachers and I are very proud of the fact that he will devote countless time and effort to the deepening of his knowledge."
The National Merit Scholarship program, which dates to 1955, provides recognition and scholarships for top students. This year's National Merit competition drew more than 1.5 million teenagers from 22,000 high schools. The students entered the 2011 program by taking the 2009 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT).
In addition to high scores on the PSAT/NMSQT, competitors must also meet various stringent participation requirements. They are eventually assigned a "selection index" that is based on their critical reading, math and writing skills scores.
Mr. Davis is well-liked around Huntington High School. "We are not surprised at his high achievement and rejoice in the fact that he has brought distinction to our school," Dr. Leonardi said.
There is more than $36 million available for this year's program.