2009 National Merit Semifinalists: New Record for Iolani
Of the 70 Hawaii high school seniors named as semifinalists in the 2009 National Merit Scholarship Program, 36 were from Iolani, a new record for the school. Punahou, by comparison, had the second highest total with 23 semifinalists.
More than 1.5 million high school juniors in nearly 21,000 high schools entered the 2009 program by taking the 2007 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants.
Semifinalists were named based on their scores and the total number is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.
The previous record for the total number of National Semifinalist in a single year was 33 - held by the classes of 1990, 1991 and 2006. Last year’s graduating Class of 2008 had 32.