Contact: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Thirteen seniors in Fayette County Public Schools are among Kentucky’s 34 winners of $2,500 awards from the National Merit Scholarship Corp. Nationwide, these 2,500 distinguished students were the state finalists judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills and potential for success in rigorous college studies. 

Congratulations to these seniors (with their probable field of study noted):  

Henry Clay High School

• John Aroutiounian, law/social science
• Jeremy Bradford, mathematics
• Connor Callaway, mechanical engineering
• Madeline Mooney, mathematics/science
• Jesse Rae Staben, medicine
• Christopher Thompson, medicine
• James Wang, pharmacy 

Paul Laurence Dunbar High School

• Timothy Cui, computer science
• Arunita Kar, biomedical engineering
• Jay Li, medicine
• Victor Macrinici, medicine
• Paul Parell, engineering
• Lawrence Rogers, computer science/business 

Selected by a committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors, these scholars may use their NMSC awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university.  

On May 25 and July 11, some 4,300 college-sponsored merit scholarship winners will be announced. About 1,000 recipients of corporate-sponsored awards were named in April; none were from FCPS.  

By the end of this year’s competition, about 7,800 academic champions will have won National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $35 million.  

While FCPS accounts for just 5.6 percent of the student population in Kentucky, the district has 22 percent of the state's 2011 semifinalists -- an FCPS-record 48 seniors. About 90 percent of semifinalists advance, and roughly half win a scholarship.

NMSC is a not-for-profit corporation established in 1955 to conduct this annual scholarship program. Most of the awards are underwritten by the more than 400 independent corporate and college sponsors. For more information, visit http://www.nationalmerit.org/.