VOL. XIII, NO. 2
OCTOBER 8, 1971

Six Semifinalists Vie For Big Scholarships
Six seniors from Maine West are among the semifinalists in the 1971-72 college scholarship competition, sponsored by the

National Merit Scholarship Corporation. The high scorers representing Maine West include Elizabeth Klein, David Johnson, Thomas Hanna, Sherry Didier, Russell Jacoby, and William Mitchell.

Of the original 665,000 competitors who took the test in February of this year, only 15,000 students will go back again in spring to take a second exam, where they will be asked to list their high school activities and interests. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation will award 3,000 scholarships worth up to $1,500 a year, depending on a student's need and scores on the tests.

The exam was made up of a variety of multiple choice questions which took a total of two and a half hours to complete. The cost of the test is $2.50.

Except for Bill, who believes there is no way to study for the test except to pay attention in class during the school year, the semifinalists agree that the only way to study for the test is to read the booklets that the students received before taking the exam. The booklets contain information about the tests, instructions on how to take them, and some sample questions from the test.
 If a student does win a scholarship, he may attend any college where he is accepted. Taking these tests has been a lot of hard work for the six seniors, but some of them think it will be easier to get accepted into the college they choose, by making the semifinals.

Liz and Sherry plan to attend the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Tom plans to attend college locally at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, while Russ will enroll farther from home at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. David plans to attend Michigan State University, and Bill hopes to go to Harvard University.

The semifinalists said that winning the scholarship would be a welcome financial aid, but if any of them did not win, their plans for college would not change very much.

Tom, Sherry, Bill, and David found that most of the test was relatively easy; but Liz and Russ considered the exam more difficult than most tests they had taken.

Bill encourages anyone at all to take the tests because you have nothing to lose and much to gain.