By Ashley Attanucci
Staff Writer

Last year, countless juniors took the PSAT/NMSQT, very well aware the grand opportunity the next couple hours could bring them.

Each year the National Merit Scholarship Corporation awards hundreds of thousands of dollars to high school students who performed exceptionally well on their Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), taken junior year by over 1.5 million students across the nation.

Since the Semi-finalist list was released, the faces of the 20 CHS seniors have been honored on the wall adjacent to Principal Hunt’s office. These students are Coppell’s National Merit Semi-finalists, meaning that they scored higher than commended on their PSAT: Annie Abraham, Suwetha Amsavelu, Paul Blazek, Ashwin Chandra, Peter Chang, Daphne Chen, Elisa Farrell, Patrick Foss, Bryce Heatherly, Lucy Huo, Chris Nguyen, Katie Quill, Bharadwaj Raghawan, Nathan Reck, Eric Ressler, Henry Trahan, Jeffrey Xue, Vicki Yang, Quinn Zhang and Zach Zoda, who all advanced to become Finalists. 
 
Only 50,000 students in America earn the title of being Semi-finalists, and an even smaller number of students can call themselves Finalists, eligible for scholarships and striking college recognition.

After writing an essay, completing a four-page application and finding recommendations, Semi-finalists waited months to receive a notification in the mail or in their e-mail that they were elevated to Finalists.

“It means you are top in your class and able to communicate all that through a testing situation,” said Hunt. “It really just indicates you’re top in your class academically. And more than a GPA can demonstrate how much of a hard worker someone is, your National Merit status represents how you compare to other students in the country academically.”

It is nation-wide school recognition that gives Finalists –and Semi-finalists- the credibility behind their title.

“Being a Finalist to me means that I have an opportunity to further my education by receiving scholarships,” Finalist Elisa Farrell said. “UTD has offered me a full-ride scholarship and more, just for being a Finalist.”

This month, the wall honoring the Coppell’s Finalists was given a title in itself, self-proclaimed by capitalized letters that read “Wall of Honor.” Initially, this title, thought to be overly boastful, was mocked by students and embarrassed Nation Merit honorees.

But the “Wall of Honor” is just that –a tribute to the accomplishments of the faces publicized on the brick wall.

“I can’t think of a better way to showcase that we value education except to have it right in the building when you walk in,” said Hunt. “We expanded [the Wall] this year [but] only the national merit get their picture. I believe in the mantra what gets recognized gets repeated.”

And students, too, now understand the enormity of those Semi-finalists’ and Finalists’ accomplishments.

“It’s a little creepy seeing my face every day when I walk into school; but it’s also kind of cool,” Farrell said. “This way people know I made this accomplishment. [But also the Wall] is a good way to motivate underclassmen so they too can strive to someday earn a place on that wall.”