Olympic Heights senior Sarah Curtis was named a National Merit Scholar semifinalist as a result of her outstanding score on the PSAT taken during her junior year. 

  Over 1.5 million high school students take the PSAT annually with only approximately 50,000 of those scoring highly enough to remain under consideration as a National Merit Scholar semifinalist.

   Those 50,000 are then narrowed down to about 16,000 through a process to ensure that talented young people from all parts of the United States are included in the final pool of semifinalists.

   Curtis took the news of being named a semifinalist in stride. “I actually wasn’t surprised,” Curtis commented. “I had studied really hard from the start of school up to taking the PSAT, so I am just glad that my work paid off.”

   Curtis is now working toward being named as a National Merit Scholar finalist. Semifinalists advance to finalist standing by meeting high academic standards including, but not limited to writing an essay and posting an SAT score equivalent to the score on the PSAT, which Curtis has already done.

  Curtis scored very highly on both her PSAT and SAT. Not wanting to divulge her actual scores, Curtis would only comment that “it was pretty good.”

   Curtis, who also plays flute and piccolo in the OH band and pitches for the Lions softball team, has not yet decided on which university she wants to attend. “I am applying to 11 universities, both in and out of Florida, to major in engineering,” Curtis explains. “I’m sure I’ll end up somewhere that’s great for me.”