National Merit Semis
The semifinalists were among 1.5 million juniors from about 22,000 high schools who entered the competition by taking the 2010 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. About 90 percent are expected to advance to finalists.
Walnut Hills High School had the most semifinalists – 21 – in the region and was tied with Solon High School in suburban Cleveland. Four other Greater Cincinnati schools had more than 10 semifinalists: St. Xavier, 18; Sycamore, 17; Mason, 16; and Seven Hills, 14.
Walnut Hills Principal Jeff Brokamp attributed the students’ success to several factors: smart kids motivated to work hard, teachers who are top in their content area, a rigorous curriculum and supportive parents.
“The biggest thing is the curriculum we have here. Ten years ago, we made it part of our long-range plan that every student would be ‘pushed’ to take advanced placement classes,” Brokamp said.
“Last year, all but two or three students in the senior class had taken at least one AP course. When you get students participating in AP courses it raises the bar, raising their achievement and bears itself out in tests like the PSAT.”
An emphasis is put on vocabulary in the school, and each morning students are given a math problem to mull over and solve. Students are encouraged to work hard by teachers, parents and each other.
“There’s a culture that exists in this school that it’s cool to achieve,” Brokamp said. “We have a very demanding curriculum. Students go home with hours and hours of homework every night. We’re not afraid to say that to be excellent at something, it takes hard work. We tell them that every day.”
This is the first time Mason High School has had so many bright students semifinalists.
Source: 204 make National Merit semis. Seniors among top 1 percent on nationwide test By Sue Kiesewetter THE ENQUIRER September 14, 2011 B5
(Note: Please leave a reply if you want to see who in your scho0l is included in the article.)
It appears 2010/2011 senior students with Chineses/Indian, assumed surnames, account for 29 percent of Sycamore’s National Merit semi/comm students.
SYCAMORE – 17 national merit semifinalists
Erik Bao
Benjamin Casuto
Cory Chisholm
Brendan Corcoran
Maulik Desai
Jane Finocharo
Christina Gao
Victor Hu
Jireh Kang
Shawn Krishnan
Vibhor Kumar
Joshua Lee
Nicholas Lennon
Artur Meller
Thomas Norris
Olivia Smith
Anirudha Vaddadi
Source: 204 make National Merit semis. Seniors among top 1 percent on nationwide test By Sue Kiesewetter THE ENQUIRER September 14, 2011 B5
Adms says: it appears about 33% or 6 are of Chinese/India descent, based on surname only.
http://my.sycamoreschools.org/bbcswebdav/pid-631380-dt-content-rid-654713_2/courses/0000-PressRelease/nmsc%20semifinalists.pdf
———————-
SYCAMORE – 14 National Merit Commended Students
Avni Bapat
Matthew Brody
Samuel Casuto
Vincent Chiang
Megan Coddington
Benjamin Dobler
Sarah Goldschneider
Clayton Hamre
Alexander Hershey
Ellen Jordan
Elizabeth Martin
Ryan Rasulis
Alexis Schramm
Ellen Wang
Adm says: about 3 (21%) are of /ChineseIndian descent, based on surname only.
SYCAMORE – 1 National Achievement Semifinalist
Alexis Schramm
Source: Ms.B. Weber,Sycamore School 12/14/11
St. Ursula Academy National Merit Semifinalists 2011-2012 seniors for outstanding results on the PSAT exam, taken last October when thwee were juniors:
- Corine Nako of Indian Hill
- Mary Tull of Indian Hill
- Katherine Woebkenberg of Montogomery
Source: See 9/14/11 article
Mason has an XX.X percent enrollment for the Asian-American student population.
Sycamore has 11.8 percent
Indian Hill has 7.5%
Lakota has 5.6% of its 18,400-student enrollment
CPS has 1% of its 33,000-student enrollment
Mason had about 8% enrollment in 2005 and 11.6% in 2008.
(…. others included ….WORD)
Source: Mason: Schools attract numerous Asian-Americans BY ????, THE ENQUIRER 10/30/11 B7 (Note: page B1 is missing at this point in time)