National Merit Semifinalists

Several students at Poly have been recognized by the National Merit Scholarship Program based on their PSAT/NMSQT scores. Brandon Deutsch and Edward Lu have become National Merit Semifinalists. They are the only students in Long Beach to have achieved this.
In addition, a short list of students have been recognized as National Merit Commended Scholars. These students are Caitlin Crahan, Christian Greer, Andrew Jones, Nia Kelley, Marissa Mak, Diego Monroy, Carl Olson, Erin Osman, Rudy Peterson, Kieran Reiser, Elizabeth Robinet, Sofia Salcedo, Steele Speelman, and Timothy White.
“I felt pretty confident about it but I was surprised when I got my score back because it was definitely higher than I expected,” said Deutsch. When asked if he had any advice for juniors who plan to take the PSAT, he said “I honestly think that a lot of the PSAT and SAT stuff is just trickery and my personal opinion is that the ACT is a better test. I’m glad they’re changing the SAT so future students can take a test that I think more accurately tests knowledge. But as of now, I’d say just get a prep book or take a course and study all of the different tricks they use to try and mess you up. Besides that, just try your hardest even though it’s a practice test because there could be some definite benefits.”
Lu, also had some advice for test takers. “You don’t need to take an elite prep course to do well. The best thing to do is to just take a practice test every week, and read a lot.”
Out of the approximately 1.5 million entrants into the National Merit Scholarship Program, about 34,000 become Commended Scholars. Of these, 16,000 become Semifinalists, and of these 15,000 become Finalists. From these Finalists, the program then selects, based on academic records, test scores, essays, and letters of recommendation, about 7,400 National Merit Scholars.