Montgomery ISD senior named 2024 National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist

~ Montgomery ISD

Five others named Commended Students

Lake Creek High School senior Brock Botard has been named a Semifinalist for the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program.

Botard is one of more than 16,000 high school seniors moving forward in the competition. The nationwide pool of Semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.

Semifinalists must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT® or ACT® scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test. From over 16,000 Semifinalists, more than 15,000 are expected to advance to the Finalist level, and in February they will be notified of this designation.

Additionally, five Lake Creek High School students – Emma Gearman, Blake Hayward, Grace Nichols, Elisha Rendall and James Warren –  have been named Commended Students in the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program.

Commended Students placed among the top 50,000 students across the nation who entered the 2024 National Merit competition by taking the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). Gearman, Hayward, Nichols, Rendall and Warren are among the nearly 34,000 of these high scorers who go on to receive Letters of Commendation from their schools and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation in recognition of their exceptional academic promise. Although Commended Students do not continue in the competition for National Merit Scholarship awards, some of these students do become candidates for other special scholarships.

“We are incredibly proud of these students,” Lake Creek Principal Tim Williams said.  “Each of them has gone the distance with academic rigor and commitment to their studies, resulting in highly successful performances earning nationally recognized distinction. We are honored to have students like them represent Lake Creek High School and Montgomery ISD.”