Two Stepinac High School seniors— Jordan Crichlow of White Plains and Ethan Tieng of Port Chester— were among less than one percent of seniors nationwide who qualified as semifinalists in the rigorous 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program.
The two academically high achieving students, who are also members of Stepinac’s Honors Academy, will have an opportunity to complete for more than $31 million in National Merit scholarships next spring.
The process of vying for prestigious recognition and the opportunity to qualify for scholarship as a finalist began with Crichlow and Tieng taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants.
“They are among 16,000 seniors nation- wide who earned the prestigious semifinalist honor,“ said Frank Portanova (Class of ’93), Stepinac’s Vice Principal for Academics and Curriculum, adding: “When you consider the fact that they were also among an initial huge population of more than 1.5 million juniors from 21,000 high schools who took this exam, theirs is truly a tremendous accomplishment. Stepinac is proud to count these young mean as members of our community.According to the NMSC website, www.natioalmerit.org, more than 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and about half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title.
