THE WOODLANDS – Seven members of The John Cooper School Class of 2017 have been selected as semifinalists in the 62nd Annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Mark Flanagan, Pamela Fojtasek, Alex George, Victor Kareh, Kaitlyn Ramirez, Gina Valderrama and Jack Wade will continue in the competition for approximately 7,500 National Merit Scholarships, worth approximately $33 million, that will be offered next spring.

These Cooper students are among 105 members of Cooper’s Class of 2017. They are among 16,000 Semifinalists named from academically talented high school seniors from around the country by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors.

About 1.6 million juniors from more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2017 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2015 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test that serves as an initial screen of program entrants. A Semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT® scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test. Approximately 15,000 Semifinalists are expected to advance to the Finalist level, and in February they will be notified of the designation. 2017 National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced beginning in April with concluding in July.

The John Cooper School is a PK-12 independent, college preparatory day school that has been serving The Woodlands and greater Houston area since 1988.