Boise Students Named National Merit Scholarship Winners

BOISE, ID — The National Merit Scholarship Corporation released a listing of over 3,100 winners of the National Merit Scholarships financed by U.S. colleges and universities. Among those named were a number of Boise students from differing local high schools.

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Over 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2019 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

Last fall, approximately 17,000 Semifinalists were named on a state-representational basis in numbers proportional to each state’s percentage of the national total of graduating high school seniors.

Semifinalists were the highest-scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than one percent of the nation’s seniors.

To compete for Merit Scholarship awards, Semifinalists first had to advance to the
Finalist level of the competition by fulfilling additional requirements. Each Semifinalist was asked to submit 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, and be endorsed and recommended by a high school official. From the Semifinalist group, some 16,000 met requirements for Finalist standing, and about half of the Finalists will be Merit Scholarship winners in 2021.

The following is a listing of local winners:

- Avery A. Bainbridge (Bishop Kelly H.S.) Computer Engineering

- Willem Baldiga (Boise H.S.) Entrepreneurship

- Brandon N. Friend (Eagle H.S.) Physics

- Ruchir Kodihalli (Riverstone H.S.) Medicine

- Adian C. Scanlan (Bishop Kelly (H.S.) Neurology

- Hyrum David Smith (Borah H.S.) Computer Science

- Ben R. Zuckerman (Boise H.S.) Economics

- Sawyer McCloskey (Capital H.S.) Biology

- Katherine Rose Hill (Capital H.S.) Medicine

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