With the ever-rising costs of college tuition, books and housing, most students will gladly accept any scholarship they can get. The National Merit Scholarship, however, is not just any scholarship.
Established in 1955, the prestigious award is distributed to several thousand high school students each year. Prospective recipients must first take a standardized test, the PSAT/NMSQT. According to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, “over 1.5 million students in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program.”
The test functions as a screening tool for the next stage of the competition, and the number of semi-finalists represents “less than one percent of all U.S. high school seniors.”
Earlier this month, El Dorado High School student Ella Langridge was named as an NMS semifinalist for the state of Arkansas. Langridge is the sole semifinalist from Union County.
Langridge is originally from New Orleans but has been attending the El Dorado School District since 5th grade. Her main academic interests lie in the humanities and in creative pursuits.
“I like creative pursuits mostly, writing, drawing and doing make-up. I’m a very arts and humanities-centered person,” Langridge said.
Teachers are an incredibly crucial part of any student’s academic life, and Langridge named two who have been particularly inspiring to her.
“Mr. [Steven] Meizler here at [El Dorado High School] is one of my favorite teachers, he’s a history teacher and is just great. Ms. [Brady] McDuffie at [El Dorado High School] was my Research teacher, and her class was very helpful in figuring out if I could have a research career later on,” she said.
The NMSQT is a standardized test that gauges a student’s critical reading, mathematics problem-solving and writing abilities, according to the organization’s website.
Landridge said taking the test and moving forward in the National Merit contest has given her confidence as she looks into the near-future and the increased academic rigors of college.
“It’s really encouraging,” Langridge said of her status as a semi-finalist.
“It’s hard to know how good at school or how good at college standards you really are, so it’s a vote of confidence.”
With a new batch of students preparing yearly to take the NMSQT, other standardized tests and preparing for their next step in life generally, tips and advice for studying and preparation are an ever-present popular item of discussion. Langridge said her study habits, particularly when it comes to standardized testing, focus on improving the areas she feels are the weakest. She offered advice based on this to students in similar positions.
“You know your own strengths and weaknesses. Don’t worry about your strengths - you know how to do those - study for your weaknesses,” Landridge said.
After high school, Langridge hopes to attend Rice University and major in Art History.
As a semi-finalist, Langridge now has to compete to be named a finalist. In that process, the semi-finalist must team with a high school official to submit a detailed scholarship application with an overview of accomplishments, school and community activities and other factors. There is also a required essay. Fifteen thousand of the 16,000 semifinalists are expected to become finalists, according to the NMS press release.