Five UCS seniors named merit semi-finalists

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

Merit semi-finalists represent the top one percent of all U.S. high school students taking the Preliminary PSAT. 

UCS merit semi-finalists are: Shelby Imboden, of Henry Ford II and the Utica Center for Mathematics, Science and Technology; Danny Haidar, Michelle Peterson and Kathleen Surhigh of Utica Academy for International Studies; and Hannah Decker, of Utica High School and the Utica Center for Science and Industry. 

More than 1.5 million students of the Class of 2014 entered the National Merit Program by taking the 2012 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.  

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.