3 Longview High School seniors become recognized Merit Scholars

LONGVIEW, Texas (KLTV) - They scored so well on their Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT, that they have been chosen as semi finalists by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

Iniabasi Ekpenyong, Rachna Edalur, Aditya Jagarlamudi, all seniors at Longview High School, penciled their way to the top one percent of those students taking the test in the entire country. The next step will be to write an essay which will be submitted in early October. All three were not expecting to do so well.

“I did study a lot, but I was still surprised because you have to miss pretty few questions to get it. And on a lot of practice tests I missed a lot more questions. I was kind of surprised on a test day when you’re supposed to have more nerves, that I did better than usual,” Aditya Jagarlamudi said.

“I felt honored really. There’s not that many kids in the nation that get this distinction. And like these are some of my closest friends so that’s also pretty cool,” Rachna Edalur said.

Sixteen thousand students from across the country were chosen out of about 1.5 million that enter each year. About 7,500 will receive $2,500 scholarships for the college of their choice.

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