BHS honors National Merit Semifinalists

The Bentonville High School National Merit Semifinalists gathered for a photograph on the second floor of the school on Thursday. From the left are Alex Eng, Brittany Taverno, Kristian Guzman, Ryan Graham and Allie Arend.
The Bentonville High School National Merit Semifinalists gathered for a photograph on the second floor of the school on Thursday. From the left are Alex Eng, Brittany Taverno, Kristian Guzman, Ryan Graham and Allie Arend.

— Six Bentonville High School students have a new honor they can list on college applications - National Merit Semifinalist.

Each year, thousands of high school seniors nationwide are named semifinalists based on their scores on the PreSAT exam, taken during the junior year. Those students can then apply to be named finalists, a distinction that is based on grades, test scores and several other factors.

Seniors Jarrod Ehrie, Kristian Guzman, Alex Eng, Ryan Graham, Allie Arendand Brittany Tavernaro were named semifinalists. The students, who were named Thursday during the Bentonville School Board Curriculum Committee meeting, will be honored during the October school board meeting, Superintendent Gary Compton said.

This year, there's a unique situation with the group of semifinalists at BHS - one of the students is no longer attending high school. Technically, students are not required to get a high school diploma to attend college, so one student - Ehrie - left BHS after his junior year to attend college.

He is a student at the University of Southern California. The irony is, Compton said, that because he left the school before graduating, Ehrie could be classified as a "dropout" by the state. Students are given that distinction if they leave school before graduating unless their parents pull them out of school and declare the action for the purpose of homeschooling.

The other five students remain at school and plan to attend college upon graduation. All of them are in the application and decision-making process for choosing a college or university.

All the students said they are pleased with thedistinction, which they can now add to their college applications in hopes of earning more scholarship money. For juniors who are preparing to take the test in a few weeks, the students did have some advice.

"Take it seriously," Guzman said. "I didn't know how important it was (when taking the test)."

Graham said it's a good idea to get plenty of sleep the night before the test. He agreed with Guzman about taking the test seriously but also said to have balance.

"If you strike a good balance between not stressing out about it but taking it seriously, you'll do good," Graham said.

News, Pages 3 on 09/25/2009

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