Saint Pat's Student Earns $25K Scholarship

Saint Patrick School eighth-grader Damon Caron was recently presented with a four-year scholarship to the Archdiocesan school of his choice, according to Saint Pat's principal Patricia O'Donnell. The scholarship is worth $25,000.

Damon, 13, he plans to attend Bishop Shanahan, where he hopes to play saxophone in the band and join the robotics club. He said his parents were very happy when he told them he'd won the scholarship, and his mother cried.

Emily Riley, from the Connelly Foundation presented Damon with the scholarship at a recent ceremony in front of the fifth through eighth grades. The Connelly Foundation has offered the scholarship since 1995:

[T]his scholarship program identifies academically talented eighth grade students through an independently administered competitive examination and provides four year scholarships to attend one of seventeen Archdiocesan high schools.

There were 705 qualified eighth-graders who took the Neumann Scholarship examination, of which 39 were named scholars, according to O'Donnell. Among the requirements for eligibility, students needed to:

• attend the grade school for at least 2 years
• achieve a National Precentile Total Score of 90 or a Cognitive Skills Index of 120 or higher in the Terra Nova Standardized Test
• achieve a final general average of 92 in the first marking period of 8th grade
• submit an essay

Damon said he thought he did pretty well on the exam, but didn't expect that he'd won. He is the third Neumann Scholar in three years at St. Patrick School.