Two recent graduates of St. Paul VI Catholic High School in Chantilly, Katrina Boland and Peter Delacourt, were awarded with the college-sponsored National Merit Scholarships for their achievements in academics, extracurricular activities and leadership roles throughout high school.
The scholarships are awarded to less than1 percent of the nation’s seniors, who began the process in 2022 after taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying test. After qualification, semifinalists had to advance to the finalist level by submitting a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay and providing information about their achievements in and outside of the classroom. Semifinalists also had to have an outstanding academic record, be endorsed, and recommended by a high school official, and earn SAT® or ACT® scores that confirmed the qualifying test performance. After the selection process of finalists, only about 3,000 students in the country receive scholarships, which are financed by U.S. colleges and universities.
In the fall, Boland will study aerospace engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., and Delacourt plans to study software engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y.
