Two Paris Excessive Faculty seniors have been named semifinalists within the 2024 Nationwide Advantage Scholarship competitors — Luke De la Garza and Preston Thompson.
Officers of Nationwide Advantage Scholarship Company introduced the names of roughly 16,000 semifinalists within the 69th annual Nationwide Advantage Scholarship Program.
The semifinalists have a possibility to proceed within the competitors for greater than 7,000 Nationwide Advantage Scholarships price almost $28 million that shall be provided subsequent spring.
The 2 PHS seniors incomes the semifinalist standing got their certificates of recognition by highschool Principal Chris Vaughn not too long ago.
De la Garza, the son of Dr. David De la Garza and Jennifer De la Garza, is at present ranked first within the 2024 PHS graduating class and scored 225 on his qualifying take a look at.
He has acquired quite a few awards in UIL, together with putting third within the UIL State 4A science group competitors. He additionally superior to Regionals this previous yr in UIL math, quantity sense and calculator.
For the previous two years, he has been a drum main for the PHS Blue Blazes band.
He holds the present faculty document for the 200 freestyle in swimming. He positioned fourth within the 200 freestyle and sixth within the 100 freestyle on the 4A State swim competitors this previous yr.
De la Garza can be a member of the Robotics group, Future Downside Fixing, Pupil Council, Kiwanis Key Membership and Nationwide Honor Society.
Thompson, the son of Dr. Gregory Thompson and Tracy Thompson, is at present ranked second within the 2024 PHS graduating class and scored 221 on his qualifying take a look at and acquired an ideal rating on the ACT.
He’s a member of the science and arithmetic UIL groups, the place he positioned third within the UIL State 4A science group with De la Garza. He additionally competed on the state stage as a person in UIL pc science and science, incomes a fourth place medal in science.
He participates in Abilities USA in Robotics and is a member of the VEX/VRC Robotics group that certified for the world competitions this previous yr.
He’s a member of Future Downside Fixing, the place his group superior on the worldwide stage the previous three years, putting tenth this previous yr. For the previous three years, he has made the All-Area band and Space band this previous yr. Thompson can be a member of the Pupil Council, Nationwide Honor Society and Kiwanis Key Membership, the place he holds management roles.
Each the semifinalists acquired nationwide recognition as an AP Scholar and a Nationwide Rural and Small City Award.
Semifinalists should fulfill a number of necessities to advance to the finalist stage of the competitors. About 95 % of the semifinalists are anticipated to realize finalist standing, and roughly half of the finalists will win a Nationwide Advantage Scholarship, incomes the Advantage Scholar title.
The choice course of started when greater than 1.3 million juniors in about 21,000 excessive faculties entered the 2024 Nationwide Advantage Scholarship Program by taking the 2022 Preliminary SAT/Nationwide Advantage Scholarship Qualifying Check, which served as an preliminary display of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing lower than one % of U.S. highschool seniors, consists of the highest-scoring entrants in every state. The variety of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s share of the nationwide whole of graduating seniors.
To turn out to be a finalist, the semifinalist and a highschool official should submit an in depth scholarship utility, by which they supply details about the semifinalist’s educational document, participation at school and neighborhood actions, demonstrated management talents, employment and honors and awards acquired. A semifinalist should have an impressive educational document all through highschool, be endorsed and beneficial by a highschool official, write an essay and earn SAT or ACT scores that affirm the scholar’s earlier efficiency on the qualifying take a look at.
From over 16,000 semifinalists, greater than 15,000 are anticipated to advance to the finalist stage, and in February they are going to be notified of this designation.
All Nationwide Advantage Scholarship winners shall be chosen from this group of finalists. Advantage Scholar designees are chosen on the idea of their abilities, accomplishments and potential for achievement in rigorous faculty research, with out regard to gender, race, ethnic origin or spiritual desire.
Nationwide Advantage Scholarship Company, a not-for-profit group that operates with out authorities help, was established in 1955 particularly to conduct the annual Nationwide Advantage Scholarship Program. Scholarships are underwritten by NMSC with its personal funds and by roughly 320 enterprise organizations and better training establishments that share NMSC’s targets of honoring the nation’s scholastic champions and inspiring the pursuit of educational excellence.
