Throughout the years the National Merit Scholarship Corporation has earned a reputation in quality and of prestige.

This year, Searcy High School has the distinct honor to have four students qualify as semi-finalists, Patrick McKenzie, Courtney Mowdy, Kenna Daggett, and Rachel McCready.

The National Merit Scholarship is provided by the College Board Corporation.

“They do the AP tests, the SATs and they do this [National Merit Scholarship],” Daggett said.

The National Merit Scholarship is very selective when choosing its recipients.

“They help find the top one percent of students in the nation, and that’s where the scholarship goes to,” Daggett added.

Some may wonder how one would qualify for the National Merit Scholarship.

“You take the Pre SAT you’re junior year and if you do well enough, score high enough, you become a semi-finalist,” McCready said.

Some of them took extra preparations just to make sure they had high scores.

“I took it my sophomore year as a preparation ; to see what it was going to be like,” McCready said. “Then, junior year I took practice tests on line, the school gives practice tests, and then I took it.”

Each of the students have their own way of preparing for such a distinct test.

“I took the PSAT, but before that I reviewed as much as I could and then just tried to go in to the test prepared,” Daggett said.  “I just said ‘I’m going to do my best and just see what happens, and hopefully I’ll get it.'”

These four semi-finalists are very fortunate to receive such a sought after scholarship provided by such a prestigious program.

“I was very excited. It’s a huge blessing. It’s going to take a load off for college,” Daggett said.

These four students worked very hard for such an amazing gift such as the National Merit Scholarship.

Even just as semi-finalist there will be many scholarship opportunities, and almost any college will be willing to accept them into their student population.