National Merit Recognizes 16 US Students

The National Merit Scholarship Program has announced that eight University School seniors have been named Commended Students or Outstanding Participants in the 2013 competition, bringing the total number of US students named Semifinalists or other honorees to 16.

These students are among those earning the highest scores on the Preliminary SAT (PSAT) test.

The seven Commended Students are: Mitchell Becker, Brett Drucker, Jason Gentile, Adam Meisler, Rahul Raj, Hunter Wasser, and Gordon Wong. Devon Steve was named an Outstanding Participant in the National Achievement Scholarship Program for black high school seniors.

As reported earlier, the eight semifinalists are: Jude Gingo, William Hilkert, Benjamin Leizman, Charles Martens, Patrick O'Shea, Vikram Shankar, William Walker, and Carlson Zou.

"All of these young men should be praised for their success on one of the nation's most challenging high school exams," said Dr. William O'Neil, Head of the Hunting Valley Campus. "Their outstanding performance is a reflection of their hard work and the work of our dedicated faculty members."