Clara Wicoff, Iola, and Colton Strickler, Colony, have been named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists.
The National Merit Scholarship program is open to any high school junior enrolled to take the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT), which both Wicoff and Strickler sat for last fall — both scoring in the country’s top 1 percent.
With this award, the Iola and Crest High School scholars keep company with fewer than 200 students in Kansas. Approximately 16,000 students made the cut nationwide.
To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award — and the raft of scholarship money that arrives in its wake — Wicoff and Strickler must maintain their already high level of academic performance and also take the SAT test, earning scores sufficient to confirm their performance on the preliminary exam. The organization will announce the 7,400 Merit Scholars come spring.
Wicoff is planning to sit for the SAT in two weeks, and is fitting in advance-study in between the innumerable other activities which dot the top student’s academic calendar.
A passionate advocate for Future Farmers of America, Wicoff is currently preparing herself for the National FFA Convention, where she will be competing in the speech competition. She is also a key member of the group organizing the upcoming Greenhand Conference, which Wicoff says will draw 500 area high school freshmen to Iola next week.
“I’m definitely interested in pursuing a career that’s related to agriculture,” said Wicoff. “I’m interested in patent law. I’m interested in agricultural engineering. I’m interested in agricultural economics. We’ll see.”
Wicoff, who says she is “excited and honored” by this latest recognition, is still weighing her choice of college.
Strickler, too, is undecided as far as colleges go. He would like to stay in state. Wherever he goes, the senior has a family stake in nearly any four-year college he is likely to attend: His father is a Kansas State alum, his mother attended KU and his older sister is currently a junior at Pittsburg State.
“But I do know that I want to major in computer engineering,” says Strickler, who describes himself as “more of a math guy” (he scored a 35 out of a possible 36 on his ACT; he’s pretty good on the language side, too). “I like to work with programming and I also like to make things, so I think [computer engineering] would be good for me.”
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation will tell the students in February whether they have passed into the bracket of finalists.
Students named National Merit Scholar semifinalists
