Topeka students named National Merit Scholarship finalists

Five Topeka high-school seniors were named earlier this year as finalists in the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program.

Brett Funk from Hayden High School and William Baker, Jacob Berry, Marissa Christensen, Kai Glashausser and Hunter Turner from Washburn Rural High School moved from the preliminary semifinalist list released in September 2018 to being named finalists, making them eligible to possibly receive not only scholarships from the program, but also from the colleges they will attend. They represent the top 1 percent of students in Kansas and are in the top 5 percent nationally.

Also, Washburn Rural senior Simon Santiago was named a National Hispanic Scholar. This places him in the top 2 percent of students in the United States.

More than 1.6 million juniors in approximately 22,000 high schools entered the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2017 Preliminary SAT (PSAT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. In September, some 16,000 semifinalists were designated due to being the highest-scoring program entrants in each state. To be eligible in Kansas, students had to score a 218 or higher out of a possible 240.

“At Washburn Rural, students are eligible to take the PSAT every October in grades 9, 10 and 11, so we really encourage students to take it in ninth and 10th grades,” said school counselor Marcie Frederickson. “We know if they’re within that rages, so we call them in and say, ‘Hey, you have the potential to be in the top 1 percent if you take some time to study.’ The only score that counts is their junior year score.”

To be considered for a National Merit Scholarship, semifinalists had to fulfill requirements to advance to finalist standing. Each semifinalist was asked to complete a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay and providing information about extracurricular activities, awards, and leadership positions. Semifinalists also had to have an outstanding academic record, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, and earn SAT scores that confirmed their qualifying test performance. From the semifinalist group, some 15,000 met finalist requirements.

“It is a lot like filling out a college app,” said Christensen. “You have to get all your references together and take the actual SAT test to make sure your PSAT and SAT scores line up closely enough to make sure you weren’t cheating.”

Santiago said the selection process for the National Hispanic Scholar designation was similar to the one for the National Merit. “It’s the top 1 percent of all Hispanic students who took the PSAT,” he explained.

By the conclusion of the 2019 competition, about 7,600 finalists will have been selected to receive National Merit Scholarships totaling more than $31 million. Also, many colleges and universities give financial support to NMS finalists. For example, Rural's Turner plans to study engineering at the University of Kansas, where he will receive $10,000 per year because he is a merit scholar.

Hayden’s Funk participated in tennis, band, scholar's bowl, theater, debate, forensics, Model UN and various academic competitions during his four years at the school. He plans to attend Kansas State University in the fall and major in mechanical engineering.

Berry will attend Yale University this fall to study economics. While in high school, “my main thing is debate. I spend 17 or 18 weekends a year out of state, so I spend most of my time researching and practicing for that. I like playing basketball with my friends. I’m in an adult softball league, so I still do the things a lot of other kids do. It’s just a lot of the time is spent doing debate work, school, student council,” he said.

Turner is involved in cross country, track and plays cello outside of school with the Topeka Cello Collective. Like Turner, Baker will also attend KU, and Glashausser is going to Amhurst in Massachusetts. Christensen also runs track and cross country, as well as being involved in a number of church activities. She will study sports medicine at Brigham Young University. Santiago will study bio-chemistry at Baker University.

“These students work their tails off from the time they enter high school,” Frederickson said. “They’re taking AP classes, honors classes. They’re working very hard. That’s why they’re doing so well. And not only that, but they are also the movers and shakers in the school. If you look at their resumes and their activities, you’ll see they’re the leaders, athletes and humanitarians. The amount of activities they’re involved in is a reflection of their overall success.”

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation is a nonprofit organization that operates without government assistance established in 1955 to conduct the National Merit Scholarship Program. The majority of National Merit Scholarships offered each year are underwritten by some 400 independent corporate and college sponsors.