Jenks High School Qualifies Eleven Students as National Merit Semifinalists for 2020 Program

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation has announced the Semifinalists for its 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program, and 11 students from Jenks High School are among the 16,000 names on the list. Jenks ranks fourth among all high schools in Oklahoma with 11 Semifinalists and has featured 10 or more National Merit Semifinalists in nine of the last 11 years.
The Jenks High School students named National Merit Semifinalists from the Class of 2020 are: Avery Acord, Aadesh Bajaj, Benjamin Diep, Samuel Hjelm, Hailey Hoog, Michael Hwang, Zachary Magnuson, Mark Mills, Baylor Norris, Morgan Pursell, and Victoria Savage.
These academically talented seniors at Jenks High School now have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,600 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $31 million to be offered next spring. To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level of the competition. According to the National Merit Corporation website, approximately 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and about half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.
More than 1.6 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2018 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of Semifinalists, representing less than one 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.
National Merit Scholarship winners of 2020 will be announced between April and July. These scholarship recipients will join more than 345,000 other distinguished young people to earn the Merit Scholar title.
Founded in 1908, Jenks Public Schools is a suburban district consisting of approximately 12,500 students and 1,600 employees. Embracing a tradition of excellence with a vision for tomorrow, Jenks Public Schools is committed to the shared responsibility of preparing all learners for productive, responsible citizenship in an ever-changing world.