3 Altamont seniors named National Merit semifinalists
A senior at The Altamont School recently earned a perfect 36 on the ACT, the highest possible composite score.
In addition, he and two other seniors at the school were designated in September as National Merit semifinalists.
Jeffrey Youngson, who is a Homewood resident, became one of only 13 Altamont students to earn a perfect ACT score over the past six years, said Laine Williams, the school’s director of communications.
The ACT consists of tests in English, mathematics, reading and science, each scored on a scale of 1-36. A student’s composite score is the average of the four test scores.
Youngson along with Alan Alderson and Audrey Williams was also named as semifinalists in the 67th annual National Merit Scholarship Program in September.
More than 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2022 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2020 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as the initial screen of program entrants.
The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing less than 1% of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.
The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.
These academically talented students have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $30 million that will be offered next spring.
Youngson is also in an elite group of students with ACT scores of 36.
On average nationally, only one-tenth of 1% of all people who take the ACT receive the top score, Williams said.
Among recent U.S. high school graduates, only about 2,800 of the more than two million students who took the ACT reached a composite score of 36.
The Altamont School is an independent day school with socioeconomic, ethnic and religious diversity and an intensive college preparatory academic program, according to the school’s website.
The school enrolls students in grades 5-12.
For more information about The Altamont School, visit altamontschool.org.
For more about the National Merit Scholarship Program, visit nationalmerit.org.