This year, South High has four National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists; Sophia Breitag-Makeever, Mairead Howley, Isabel Rousmaniere, and Nicholas Jensen, all seniors. Becoming a semifinalist is no easy feat. To qualify as semifinalist, or commended student, you must score in the top 3% of the PSAT. Then ⅓ of those students are selected to be semifinalists, meaning that only 1% of all students who take the PSAT will become National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists.

Despite all four being South students, only one of the four took the test at South. Rousmaniere took it at the School for Ethics and Global Leadership, a semester boarding school program for juniors in Washington D.C. with only 23 other people, which she thinks gave her an advantage. “I was less stressed out because I was really relaxed around the people I was with,” said Rousmaniere. Breitag-Makeever took the test at Southwest. “It was a stressful environment for testing,” she said. Jensen was sick for the PSAT at South, so he sent in his SAT scores instead. Howley was the only one took the test at South.

After being selected as a semifinalist, students go through “a mini version of the college app process.” It requires a counselor recommendation, transcript, extracurriculars, and an essay.

“It kinda forced me to get my stuff together for colleges before I was planning on doing it, so that was nice,” said Rousmaniere.

Breitag-Makeever said, “I was really stressed about it cause it’s just a lot more work.”

All four agreed that the PSAT and standardized testing, in general, is unfair and that they were advantaged. “Standardized testing is weighted by race and gender and socio-economic class and every factor that has contributed to any kind of prejudice,” said Howley.

“I’m the kind of person that the tests were built for,” said Rousmaniere, citing being neurotypical, speaking the same english that the tests are written in and having a lot of resources to learn and study as some of the reasons she is advantaged.

“I’m just privileged in my upbringing, my parents had a lot of time to read to me and encourage me a lot,” said Breitag-Makeever.

Jensen explained, “I’ve been pushed and pushed to do better all my life because of their [his parents] expectations.”  He later pointed out that it’s been proven that when the expectations are higher, the child achieves more, and that society doesn’t put those expectations of greatness on children of color.

“That being said, I am really excited to be a national merit semifinalist,” said Rousmaniere.  She is interested in political science or government so she can do something in the public sector. Smith is her top choice right now in her college search, but she’s interested in many more.

Breitag is also interested in Smith, as well as Wesleyan and Grinnell, all small liberal arts colleges. She is rather undecided as to what she wants to pursue, with “too many ideas.”

Mairead is undecided as well but wants to go into science, math or teaching. She has a long list of 15 colleges at the moment and is still trying to cut it down.

Jensen is pretty sure he wants to go into engineering, and is looking to go to either MIT or Stanford.