Two Brewster Students Named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

Brewster High School seniors Andrew DiFabbio and Aaron Lurin were named Semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship program this week.

DiFabbio and Lurin are among approximately 16,000 students chosen from 1.6 million who took last year’s PSAT, the qualifying test for the scholarships. These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $32 million that will be offered next spring.

According to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, “the nationwide pool of Semifinalists, representing less than one percent of US high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.”

Both DiFabbio and Lurin were incredibly humble upon learning of their Semifinalist status.

“I just feel very grateful that these sorts of tests mesh well with the way I learn,” Lurin said, acknowledging his aptitude for test taking.

Aside from doing well on the PSAT, Lurin and DiFabbio are both active members of the Brewster community. They’ve worked together in theater — DiFabbio was even nominated for a Metro Award for his comedic performance in Mama Mia! last spring. DiFabbio has also been a member of the marching band, Model UN, the Math team, Men’s Choir and Boy Scouts. Lurin, who plans to study political data analysis in college next year, has been a part of Democratic Congress as well as a student representative to the Board of Education.

DiFabbio and Lurin have to submit detailed applications to advance to the next stage, a step that includes providing information about their academic records, school and community activities, leadership abilities and more. The students will also need a letter of recommendation from a high school official and will have to write essays and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirm their earlier test performance.

Finalists will be notified in February and will compete for three types of scholarships in the spring: National Merit $2500 Scholarships, corporate-sponsored awards, and college-sponsored awards.

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Submitted by Brewster, NY

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