South High School was informed in September that we have five students in our school that have made it as National Merit Scholarship semifinalists, and six students were commended, meaning that they had a very high score in the PSAT.

The PSAT, or the preliminary S.A.T. is a test that every junior in high school takes to get a scholarship and/or to be a merit semifinalist. For those who are high schoolers, juniors, and a United States or lawful resident are allowed to take the PSAT test. If you missed your test you can request a test, but if you just didn’t do it you can’t retake.

The merit selects a number of people with highest PSAT scores, and then looks for the highest scores in that little bunch of people to find the finalists. If you are trying to be a finalist you need to also have a counselor recommendation.

An example of someone that would give recommendations as a counselor would be Brie Hassel, who is one of the main counselors that are in looking through the PSAT test after every student that is a junior finishes.

Ella Barnhill, Josiah Ferguson and Townes Nelson are three of the South semifinalists, along with Elwood Olson and Eliza Roberts.

Barnhill says that “it’s mostly bragging rights, honestly the whole award is 90% bragging rights.” As for Ferguson, he feels that “you could use it for college reputation”, and didn’t feel much about the reward.

Nelson agrees that the merit isn’t very significant: “I don’t care a ton, I don’t think a standardized test is a good way to evaluate whether someone is “smart” or not, much less whether they should get an award. I guess I hope it helps me with college applications though” he explained over a Facebook interview. Nelson continued to say that the merit doesn’t take into account educational inequality,

Barnhill is nervous to do another test but will do her best just like in the PSAT competition, for bragging and college applications. Both of the students were informed by the school that they were semifinalists; Barnhill found out when a neighbor told her father and Ferguson found on a website that said all the national merit finalist in the state and found himself on the list after a friend of his told him.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation was founded in 1955, and has since annually awarded scholarships to students across the United States. The scholarships are financed by “about 230 corporations, company foundations and businesses, and by NMSC’s own funds” according to the NMSC website.

Sophomores can take the the PSAT, but only as a practice so they can prepare for the actual test. It doesn’t really matter if you get the test right when you are a sophomore, as it doesn’t affect your grade.The test isn’t one that you necessarily study for, it is just an opportunity to score some college scholarships. Give it a try!