Saint Patrick senior Conor Murphy has been selected as a semifinalist for a National Merit Scholarship.
The Chicago resident is one of just 16,000 students from 22,000 high schools across the country to reach this stage. Murphy (Saint Cornelius) emerged as a semifinalist from a pool that originally included 1.6 million entrants.
From the group of semifinalists, 7,500 students will be selected as winners of a Merit Scholarship Award. The announcement of the winners will begin in April 2018.
The National Merit Scholarship Program is an academic competition for recognition and scholarships that began in 1955. High school students enter the program by taking the preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.
The recognition is the latest in a long line of academic achievements for Murphy, a Saint Patrick honors student who recorded a perfect score on the ACT last year. Along with these achievements, Conor is a varsity cross country runner, the first chair for the alto saxophone section of the Honors Jazz Band, captain of the Academic Team and a member of the Spanish and Book Discussion Clubs.
This is the second year in a row a Saint Patrick student has been selected as a semifinalist. Last year, William McNulty (Ascension) was named a National Merit Finalist and received a full scholarship to the University of Oklahoma where he is now majoring in physics.
