213 Fairfax County students from 21 high schools have been named semifinalists by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation for 2017. Our very own Benjamin Betts has qualified as being one of the semifinalists. By scoring one of the top scores on the PSAT.

The National Merit Scholarship Program began in 1955 and is an academic competition for recognition and scholarships. To enter to become a National Merit Scholar, high students have to take the Preliminary National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT).

Approximately 1.6 students take the PSAT. Also, the high school student has to be a U.S. citizen or U.S. lawful permanent resident.

In the spring of 2017, semifinalists are allowed to compete for 7,500 National Merit Scholarship awards with $33 million. About 16,000 high school seniors were National Merit Scholarship semifinalists. The pool of students represents less than 1 percent of total U.S. high school seniors. Depending on the state’s percent of total graduating senior will affect the number of semifinalists in a state.

In 2017, three types of Merit scholarship awards will be offered such as, National Merit $2,500 scholarships, corporate-sponsorship scholarships and college sponsored scholarships. Merit Scholarship winner will be announced sometime in the spring of 2017, there is no official date yet.

Merit Scholarship awards are supported by around 420 independent sponsors and by NMSC’s own funds. Sponsor organizations include corporations, and businesses, company foundations, professional associations, and colleges and universities.

Betts has to write an essay and submit some other documents to be scored against the other semifinalists to become a finalist. Betts was shocked to find out he was one of the semifinalists because some of his peers excelled more than him in school but did not end up being a semifinalists. Before taking the SAT, Betts has taken an SAT class at Huntington Learning Center.

Senior Benjamin Betts says,  “I do not study that much but I did prepare for the SAT which helped me to score well on the PSAT.”

Benjamin Betts pushes himself to take all honor and IB classes for his core classes. Benjamin Betts said, “I have always found math pretty easy, reading is not that hard either, grammar tends to make sense.”

His main focus is music, he strives to major in music production.

He plays the trombone for Annandale’s band and sings for Annandale’s Choir. Betts has a few colleges in mind that he would like to attend, such as the University of Southern California, University of Michigan, Shenandoah conservatory, and then everyone’s usual JMU.