Ten UCS seniors named among nation's best

Ten UCS students have been named among 15,000 students nationally to be finalists in the National Merit Scholarship program.

Georgia Hurchalla, of Henry Ford II High School; Michael Anderson and Neesirg Patel, of Stevenson High School; Jessica Gaines, Lucas Weingartz, and Troy Zuccaro, of the Utica Academy for International Studies; Mark Cunningham, of Utica High School and the Utica Center for Mathematics, Science and Technology, and Benjamin Austin, Samantha Kulhanek, and Sanjana Murali of Eisenhower High School. Hurchalla, Anderson, Patel, Austin, and Murali also attend the Utica Center for Mathematics, Science and Technology will now compete for three levels of scholarships offered through the program: corporate, college and merit scholarships.

More than 1.5 million students of the Class of 2013 entered the National Merit Program by taking the 2011 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. In September, the highest scorers were named Semifinalists on a regional representation basis.

To be selected as a finalist, Semifinalists had to fulfill requirements to enter the next round of the scholarship program, which included having a record of consistently high academic performance; being endorsed and recommended by an official of their high school; earning SAT scores that confirm their PSAT/NMSQT performance; and writing an essay.