Four Fayette students are among the 27,800 winners nationwide receiving scholarships through the 2007 National Achievement Scholarship Program, a competition for African American high school students.

David Mitchell of Sandy Creek High, Reid White of McIntosh High and Paul Winchester of Starr’s Mill High are each the recipients of a $2,500, single payment, National Achievement Scholarship. These scholarships were awarded to 700 students nationwide.

Also, Desiree Williams of McIntosh High received the National Achievement BellSouth Scholarship. This scholarship is offered to finalists in the National Achievement Program who are children of employees of the BellSouth family of companies. About 100 scholars received corporate sponsored Achievement Scholarship awards. Almost all of these scholarships are renewable and provide stipends that can vary from $500-10,000 per year, but a few provide a single payment between $2,500-5,000.

More than 140,000 students entered the 2007 National Achievement Program by requesting consideration when they took the 2005 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) as high school juniors. In September 2006, approximately 1,600 of the highest scorers were named semifinalists on a regional basis. To continue in the competition, semifinalists had to fulfill requirements for finalist standing, which included having a record of consistently high academic performance, being endorsed and recommended by an official of their high school, earning SAT scores that confirm the PSAT/NMSQT performance and submitting an essay about personal interests, attainments and goals.

Approximately 1,300 semifinalists advanced to the finalist level. Achievement Scholar awardees are the finalist candidates judged to have the strongest record of accomplishments and greatest potential for college academic success.

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