Putnam City West Student Honored
Andrea Bryan of Putnam City West High School is one of about 1,600 talented African American high school seniors across the nation and seven in Oklahoma to be named a National Achievement Program Semifinalist.
Bryan now has an opportunity to continue in competition for about 800 Achievement Scholarship awards, worth some $2.5 million, that will be offered next spring for college undergraduate study.
More than 130,000 high school juniors from all parts of the U.S entered the 2007 Achievement Program by requesting consideration when they took the 2005 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Qualifying Test. Semifinalists were designated within geographic regions and are the highest-scoring program entrants in the states that make up each region.
For semifinalists to advance to the finalist level of the competition and be considered for Achievement Scholarship awards, students must fulfill a number of requirements. They must have a record of high academic performance throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by their school principal, and earn SAT scores that confirm their earlier Preliminary SAT performance. The semifinalist and a school official also must complete a scholarship application in which they provide information about the student's participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, and educational goals.
The names of winners of National Achievement $2,500 Scholarships and corporate-sponsored awards will be released to news media in early April.
The National Achievement Scholarship Program is an academic competition established in 1964 to provide recognition for outstanding African American high school students and increase their educational opportunities. Since the program was founded, more than 27,000 academically talented participants have received Achievement Scholarship awards worth nearly $86 million.
The program is sponsored by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, which also conducts the National Merit Scholarship Program.