Sept. 29, 2005

TWELVE MOORESTOWN FRIENDS STUDENTS (ONE-SIXTH OF SENIOR CLASS)

RECEIVE NATIONAL MERIT SCHOLARSHIP RECOGNITION

MOORESTOWN, NJ – Four Moorestown Friends School seniors have been named semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program and eight have been named National Merit Commended Students based on their test scores on the PSAT/NMSQT or Preliminary SAT/ National Merit Scholarship Qualifying test.

Taken together, that means one-sixth of the senior class at Moorestown Friends School received National Merit recognition. MFS has the highest SAT scores in South Jersey, according to the most recent Philadelphia Inquirer Report Card on the Schools.

Ryan Mulligan of Westampton, Mario Ponticello of Medford, Nina Schuchman of Mount Laurel and Ben Spielberg of Westmont were named Semifinalists.

Allison Bernard of Merchantville, Grace Bundens of Woodbury, David Fischer of Cherry Hill, Nathan Harper of Port Republic, Ben Jones of Mount Holly, Ted Kreider of Moorestown, Jacob Leh of Cherry Hill; and Alex Stark of Moorestown were named Commended Students.

Semifinalists are among the top 16,000 of the more than 1.3 million students who took the college admissions exam last fall. They represent less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors. The number of state semifinalists is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

As semifinalists, the students will have an opportunity to compete for one of the 8,200 Merit Scholarship awards worth $33.9 million that are awarded by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. To become finalists, they must have a record of high academic performance, be recommended by their school principal and earn SAT scores that confirm their test performance. Approximately 15,000 semifinalists advance to the finalist level.

Commended Students placed among the top five percent of those taking the test. There are about 34,000 Commended Students throughout the nation.