Three FVHS students are National Merit semifinalists

The National Merit Scholarship Corp. has announced the names of approximately 16,000 semifinalists in the 64th annual National Merit Scholarship Program, including three students from Fountain Valley High School.

The semifinalists now have an opportunity to continue in the competition for about 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $31 million that will 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.

The semifinalists from Fountain Valley High School are: Joseph Kim, Vivianne Le and Anton Than. They are among about 1.6 million juniors in about 22,000 high schools who entered the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2017 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

To become a finalist, a semifinalist and his or her high school must submit a detailed scholarship application, in which they provide information about the semifinalist’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received.

A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.