- April 25, 2024
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How difficult is it to become a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist?
Of the 1.5 million high school juniors who took the PSAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, only 16,000 – or just over 1% -- were chosen as semifinalists based on their scores.
Four of them are seniors in the International Baccalaureate program at Flagler Palm Coast.
Sean Gilliam, Paul Grau, Kenny Logan and Danny Wolcott will find out in February if they make the next cut, which is not as demanding as the last one. Based on their applications and personal essays, recommendations, and test scores, about 15,000 of the semifinalists will be named named finalists. About half of those will win the $2,500 scholarships.
But making it this far opens doors to more substantial college and corporate scholarships. Wolcott’s sister, Ellie, was a National Merit Scholarship finalist and received the Benacquisto Scholarship to the University of Florida.
The four students all have weighted GPAs higher than 5.0. And they have been friends since they were in the gifted program together at Bunnell Elementary School. Logan, Gilliam and Grau have been in the same class since the third grade. Wolcott joined the pack in fifth grade.
FPC’s four National Merit Scholarship semifinalists met with the Palm Coast Observer recently and spoke about their success; some of their favorite teachers -- Mrs. Panameno in elementary school and math teacher Mr. Warren at FPC ("He's an angle of a human being," Logan said); and how three of them got their only 'B' in the third grade.
Let's go inside your applications. You had to list your first college choice. Where do you want to go to school, and when you get there what are your aspirations?
Logan: Ideally, I'd like to go to Yale and major in mechanical engineering and maybe minor in business.
Grau: For a long time I was really hazy on what I want to do, and I’m still kind of hazy on the specific college, but I chose to be remote the whole COVID year, so I got really into the LINUX operating system, so I'm probably going to head down into the computer science route and ideally stick some music in there. I play the cello and I was in chorus when it fit into my schedule.
Gilliam: I don’t really know what I want to major in. Kind of like Paul I definitely want to do something with computer science because I think technology can be applied to almost any field. As far as school, I mean Yale or any of the Ivy Leagues that I’m applying to, those would be like awesome. However, if I was to do an in-state school, the University of Florida would be my top choice, especially if I get the National Merit Benaquisto Scholarship. That would be like the full ride.
"I got a B in math in third grade. Until I got into calculus, math just always seemed kind of dull, and then calculus made math fun."
KENNY LOGAN
Wolcott: My intended major now is very open to change. Public policy and international affairs. And I’m looking at possible minors in statistics and data science and also music because I’m a composer. I am in the marching band. I play trombone. As far as college, Yale has been my dream school since freshman year, so I guess that’s a connecting factor between the four of us.
So, have any of you ever gotten a B on your report card?
Logan: I got a B in math in third grade. Honestly I was never interested in math until very recently. Until I got into calculus, math just always seemed kind of dull, and then calculus made math fun. And now that’s my favorite subject.
Grau: One writing assignment in third grade brought my quarter grade down to a B.
Wolcott: I got one B in third grade as well, the first quarter. I think it was English because I hated English tests in third grade.
Gilliam: At eighth grade graduation ceremony they gave me a plaque for getting straight A's for six years. I haven’t gotten a B in my academic career. I’m sorry.
What advice would you give your classmates?
Logan: Pick a goal. Find something that you aspire to be and just set your mind to it and accomplish it at all costs. If you really want to do something you can do it. You just have to work hard.
Gilliam: Don’t procrastinate. I feel like a hypocrite for saying this, but in general I’m able to balance sports -- I'm on the varsity cross country and track teams -- academics, extracurriculars, all that stuff. It’s not too much work if you just do it at the time. A lot of people say I’m going to delay this task and then it snowballs and another task is piled on, and by the time they realize how much work is assigned it’s just too much and overwhelming. I think if you just stay on top of the task, it really isn’t too much.
Wolcott: I definitely went through what Sean was just explaining, especially last year in multiple classes. I would say, use your disadvantages to your advantage. As far as COVID goes, and being remote, my parents were very strict. Instead of just giving up and getting grades I wasn’t happy with I persevered and found opportunities as far as extracurriculars that were remote, that were virtual, that I wouldn’t have found otherwise. So COVID was obviously a disadvantage, but we all learned to take what we can from it and make it better for ourselves.
Grau: I feel that it’s also important to remember that you need to take breaks. If you just push yourself and push yourself, the time that you’re spending is going to be increased. If you take short productive breaks and get back on the work, that really helps. Also, build a community. Make sure you have people who will support you and who you will support.
Gilliam: One of the biggest things that has helped us on our journey is we’re into making learning fun. We’ve really developed our relationships with each other and in turn we’ve made learning in the classroom fun and not like a chore.
Logan: We’re all life-long learners. We all really enjoy learning, and that’s not necessarily because the topics are so exciting. We’ve just been able to find things that are exciting within those topics.
Wolcott: I feel like the culture we have in the IB program it’s very collaborative. It’s not competitive. We see each other like our teammates. We’ve cultivated that environment where we all want to help each other. Even though it’s difficult, we love having academically vigorous classes and we love pushing ourselves to the fullest potential.
