Students nab National Merit honors

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Two students at Hayes High School were recently announced as National Merit Commended Students, and one senior was named a semifinalist in the competition, giving him the chance to earn a scholarship.

Sam Kahn and Dominic Hupp were named commended students in September in the National Merit Scholarship Program. The ranking is based on PSAT scores from last October. According to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, only 50,000 of 1.5 million students are chosen to be commended students.

“I wasn’t really expecting I’d achieve this,” Kahn said. “I thought I did pretty good, but I didn’t think I’d get an award.”

Kahn added he is happy about the commendation and looking forward to putting the award on college applications.

Hupp said the letter notifying him of the commendation never made it to him.

“I didn’t know until I got an email from (guidance counselor Jennifer Pollard,)” Hupp said. “I’ve honestly been throwing all my mail in a box right now. I just have a box with all my college mail, because I get way too much. My mom says she’s going to start charging me a mail fee for my college mail.”

Hupp said once he found out, he was thrilled.

“I was pretty excited,” he said. “It means you performed really well on it. That’s always a bonus. It’s good on college applications, like everything else. It’s another thing to add.”

Aaron Koehler, also a senior, was selected as one of approximately 16,000 students to be a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist.

“When I first found out I was excited, but I had already assumed I had it,” Koehler said. “I had looked at the past cutoffs and my score was above those. I was worried after the test, because I made a really dumb mistake on the test.”

Koehler said the program will announce a limited number of students that will be named finalists and will receive a $2,500 scholarship. According to the corporation, only 7,600 students are chosen for $31 million worth of scholarships.

“I think I’ll be excited when I find out if I get to finalist,” Koehler said.

Seniors Aaron Koehler and Dominic Hupp stand together in the hall at Hayes High School Friday. Hupp and another senior, Sam Kahn, were recently named Commended Students by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation for the scores on the PSAT from last October. Koehler was named a semifinalist in the corporation’s program and is in the running for an award and scholarship. Kahn asked not to be pictured.
https://www.delgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2019/10/web1_DSC_0922.jpgSeniors Aaron Koehler and Dominic Hupp stand together in the hall at Hayes High School Friday. Hupp and another senior, Sam Kahn, were recently named Commended Students by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation for the scores on the PSAT from last October. Koehler was named a semifinalist in the corporation’s program and is in the running for an award and scholarship. Kahn asked not to be pictured. Glenn Battishill | The Gazette

By Glenn Battishill

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Glenn Battishill can be reached at 740-413-0903 or on Twitter @BattishillDG.

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