Two Hills East Students Win $2500 National Merit Scholarships

The Half Hollow Hills Central School District of Huntington and Babylon is proud to announce that High School East seniors Jared Bank and Rinni Bhansali have been awarded $2,500 is the National Merit Scholarship Competition. The $2,500 Merit Scholar designees were chosen from a talent pool of more than 15,000 outstanding Finalists in the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program.

National Merit $2,500 Scholarship winners are the Finalists in each state judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills, and potential for success in rigorous college studies. The number of winners named in each state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the nation’s graduating high school seniors.

“We are very proud of Rinni and Jared for being named Merit Scholars in the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program,” said Dr. Patrick Harrigan, the Half Hollow Hills Superintendent of Schools. “Over the course of their educational careers in Half Hollow Hills, both students have shown how hard work and determination lead to personal and academic successes. They are very deserving of this prestigious honor.”

A committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors, who appraised a substantial amount of information submitted by both the Finalists and their high schools, selected these Scholars. The judges looked at their academic record, difficulty level of subjects studied and grades earned, scores from two standardized tests, contributions and leadership in school and community activities, an essay written by the Finalist, and a recommendation written by a high school official.

This year’s National Merit Scholarship Program began in October 2017 when over 1.6 million juniors in approximately 22,000 high schools took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. Last fall, the highest-scoring participants in each state, representing less than one percent of the nation’s high school seniors, were named Semifinalists on a state-representational basis. Only these 16,000 Semifinalists had an opportunity to continue in the competition.

From the Semifinalist group, some 15,000 students met the very high academic standards and other requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. By the conclusion of the 2019 program, about 7,600 Finalists will have earned the “Merit Scholar” title and received a total of over $31 million in college scholarships.

NMSC, a not-for-profit corporation that operates without government assistance, was founded in 1955 specifically to conduct the National Merit Scholarship Program. Approximately 400 independent corporate and college sponsors that share NMSC’s goals of honoring scholastically talented youth and encouraging academic excellence at all levels of education underwrite the majority of scholarships offered each year.

An education-oriented community with high academic expectations, the Half Hollow Hills Central School District is located in a residential area of 50,000 people in the central part of Long Island, approximately 40 miles from New York City. Providing for the education of almost 8,000 students, the school district has five elementary schools, two middle schools and two high schools. Half Hollow Hills High Schools are fully accredited by the New York State Department of Education. The district is committed to providing all students with opportunities to excel in academics, athletics and the arts.