FOSTER ANNOUNCES NATIONAL MERIT SEMIFINALIST

Benjamin Wu

Foster High School announced senior Benjamin Wu was named a 2023 National Merit Semifinalist. To qualify, he scored in the top 1% of the 1.5 million high school juniors across the United States who took the Preliminary SAT last October.

The next step of this highly competitive program is to complete the application to become a finalist. Winners will be announced next April and may receive scholarships starting at $2500. Wu will be evaluated on SAT scores, academic transcript (difficulty level, depth and breadth of subjects studied, as well as grades earned), extracurricular and community involvement, leadership positions and a 1500-word essay. Additionally, students must be enrolled in their last year of high school and plan to attend college full-time next fall.

At Foster, Wu made drumline all four years of high school and is currently co-section leader of this elite group. He has gone to the State Marching Band competition twice and State Solo and Ensemble twice. He is a member of National Honor Society, Code Wars, UIL Computer Science and Workforce in Training. This past summer, he completed the 100+ hours required for Service Cord volunteering at various Gulf Coast Beach Clean-ups, Faith United Methodist Church and Lunches of Love.

Senior year, Wu is taking a full course load including AP Chemistry, AP English IV, AP Calculus BC, AP Computer Science A, AP Statistics and Marching Band. By graduation, he will complete 14 AP courses with passing scores on all of the exams he’s taken so far. In addition to his multidisciplinary endorsement, he will also earn a STEM-Mathematics endorsement upon graduation. He plans to major in Computer Science / Computer Engineering in college.

The National Merit Scholarship Program is an academic competition for recognition and scholarships that began in 1955. Their mission is to recognize and honor the academically talented students of the United States. Seniors Andrew Kunz and Corinne Wang were also named National Merit Semifinalists at Foster. Best of luck to all the Foster Falcons!