December 9, 1997

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Durfee) 32 CITY SCHOOLS SENIORS NAMED NATIONAL MERIT SEMIFINALISTS Thirty two seniors at 10 San Diego high schools have been named semifinalists in the annual National Merit Scholarship competition. They are among some 15, 000 students nationwide who will compete for approximately 7,400 scholarships worth about $28 million in the 1998 competition. This yearıs semifinalists and their schools include: Amy Duell, Clairemont; Jondou Chen, Stephen Doane, Marcus Frampton, Miranda Halverson, Annamarei Ho, Edward Koster, Kawon Lee, Susan Lin, Chiansan Ma, Alex Price, Morgan Teachworth and Joshua Weiss, La Jolla; Mercedes Munoz, Mira Mesa; Emily Basham and Adam Gomez, Mission Bay; Erin Clark and Ishwara Glassman, Patrick Henry; Cameron Bonney, Brett Florio, Matthew Ooi, Point Loma; Anne Gregory and Anna Salamon, San Diego; Erich Eminhizer, Bryce Mendelsohn and Angeline Spain, Scripps Ranch; Tiffany Bloomfield and Katherine Moyer, Serra; Daniel McLean, Edgar Milik, Annette Sheppard and Christopher Werwage, University City. The National Merit Scholarship Corp. awards three types of scholarships based on studentsı SAT I scores, outstanding high school academic records, school endorsements and other criteria. This year there will be about 2,200 National Merit $2,000 Scholarships to be awarded on a state representational basis. The school districtıs 32 semifinalists are among more than 1.1 million students in some 20,000 U.S. high schools who entered the 1998 Merit Program as juniors by taking the 1996 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). Using this qualifying test as an initial screen of program entrants, the highest scorers in each state were designated semifinalists, in numbers representing about one-half of one percent of the stateıs high school graduating class.