EVANSTON, Ill. - A Seabury Hall graduating senior has won a $2,500 National Achievement Scholarship funded by the National Merit Scholarship Corp.
Rain K. Hennessey, of Makawao, earned the scholarship established in 1964 to honor scholastically talented black American youths and to provide scholarships to a substantial number of the most outstanding participants. Eight hundred National Achievement Scholarships, worth a total of more than $2 million, were offered this year to outstanding high school seniors for college undergraduate study. Award recipients are judged to have the strongest record of accomplishments and greatest potential for academic success in college.
More than 160,000 students entered the 2011 National Achievement Scholarship Program by requesting consideration when they took the 2009 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) as high school juniors. In September, about 1,600 of the highest scorers were named semifinalists on a regional representation basis. To continue in the competition for National Achievement Scholarships, semifinalists had to fulfill requirements, that included having a record of high academic performance, being endorsed and recommended by their high school principals, earning SAT scores that confirmed the PSAT/NMSQT performance, and writing an essay.
Some 1,300 semifinalists advanced to the finalist level, and all 800 Achievement Scholarship winners were selected from that group.
The daughter of Martin Hennessey and Diana Poulsen, the Seabury graduate will be attending Cornell University in the fall. At school, she served as yearbook editor and is a member of the Rotary Interact Club. She tutors middle-school students in Spanish and enjoys swimming, gardening and soccer.
