VOL. XXII, NO. 1
SEPTEMBER 19, 1980

3 Maine West Seniors Advance To Scholarship Finals
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation has announced the names of the semifinalists in the 1981 graduating class. Three Maine West students have been included in this list.

The seniors chosen from Maine West are Mike Chiropolos, Dawn Fridley, and Samir Shyamani.

To qualify for this honor, the students had to score extremely high on the PSAT/NMSQT test, taken when they were juniors. The semifinalists from each state represent the top half of one per cent of the state's high school senior class.

These students will now go on to meet the further requirements needed to become a finalist. These requirements include being fully endorsed and recommended for scholarships by their high school principal, submitting records confirming their high academic standings, and, finally, by achieving equivalent scores to their PSAT/ MNSQT scores on another examination.
 In February, 90 per cent of the semifinalists, or 14,000 students, will be notified that they have become finalists. From that point, they will be competing for about 4,500 Merit Scholarships.

At least 1,000 nonrenewable $1,000 National Merit Scholarships will be awarded. Approximately 3,500 scholarships, most of which are worth between $1,000 and $8,000 over four years of undergraduate study, will be awarded to 1981 graduates. Of these scholarships, 1,500 will be financed by more than 400 corporations, company foundations, and business organizations that designate the four-year Merit Scholarships they support for children of company employees, for finalists from particular geographic areas, or for those planning careers a sponsor wishes to encourage.