FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 22, 2022
NUSD Recognizes National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists and Commended Students
Jesse Chi
(Novato, CA) … The Novato Unified School District is pleased to announce that Jesse Chi at San Marin High School and Nicholas A. Oclassen at Novato High School have been named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists.
Jesse and Nicholas are two of more than 16,000 Semifinalists across the country that will be considered for a Finalist for the National Merit Scholarship in 2023 and has demonstrated through distinguished performance high potential for future academic accomplishment. These 16,000 Semifinalists comprise approximately less than 1% of high school seniors across the country and represents the highest-scoring entrants in each state. High school juniors entered the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2021 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test which served as an initial screen of program entrants.
Nicholas Oclassen
“On behalf of myself and the Board of Trustees, we congratulate Jesse and Nicholas and all the National Merit semifinalists. We are very proud of these academically talented students. We also want to recognize our Commended Students who are also very talented,” commented Superintendent Jan La Torre-Derby.
In addition, the following students have been named a Commended Student by the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC):
Daniel Gorel San Marin High School
Ryan Horburg San Marin High School
Colette Z. Kolodny Novato High School
Benjamin M. Schlotman Novato High School
Clark A. Schultz Novato High School
Rory Smith San Marin High School
About 34,000 Commended Students throughout the nation are being recognized for their exceptional academic promise. Although they will not continue in the 2023 competition for National Merit Scholarship awards, Commended Students placed among the top 50,000 scorers of more than 1.5 million students who entered the 2023 competition by taking the 2021 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, representing the top 3% of students who took the test.
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