Two Seven Lakes High students have been named as recipients of prestigious scholarships from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.
Toluwani Alimi and Olamide Omidele are among approximately 800 outstanding black high school seniors nationwide who have won Achievement Scholarship Awards through the National Achievement Scholarship Program.
OMIDELE
The awards, totaling over $2 million, are being financed by grants from 29 corporate organizations and professional associations.
Alimi has been in Katy ISD since fifth grade, and attended Kilpatrick Elementary and Beckendorff Junior High. He plans to major in chemical engineering upon graduating from Seven Lakes High.
Omidele has attended Creech Elementary and Beck Junior High. Upon graduating from Seven Lakes High this May, he plans to attend Columbia University and enter the medical field.
“I feel very blessed to receive this award and want to thank my parents and the school for supporting me,” said Omidele.
ALIMI
More than 160,000 students entered the 2012 National Achievement Scholarship Program by requesting consideration in the competition when they took the 2010 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test as high school juniors.
Last September, approximately 1,600 of the highest scorers were named semifinalists on a regional representation basis. To continue in the competition, semifinalists had to fulfill requirements for finalist standing, which included having a record of consistently high academic performance; being endorsed and recommended by an official from their high school; earning sat scores that confirmed their PSAT/NMSQT performance and writing an essay.
From the semifinalist pool, some 1,300 advanced to the finalist level. The 800 National Achievement Scholarship winners were selected from the group of finalists.
Achievement Scholar awardees are the finalist candidates judged to have the strongest record of accomplishments and greatest potential for academic success in college.
Way to go boys! Congratulations on your hard work!
Congratulations to both of these fine young gentlemen on their hard work and the recognition they are now receiving. I am sure their parents and the entire community are proud of them and wish them only the best. Every time one of our student’s does well we should acknowledge it and thank a teacher.
We continue to be a society divided on so many issues, race being one of them. When I see awards such as this I have to wonder if we are helping or hurting the cause of racial harmony, which is a goal we should all work towards everyday. There is no justification for discrimination in any form.
Having said this, why do we continue to see awards like this based on race? Can you imagine the uproar if we had a similar award aimed at Anglo students only?
I know this is a touchy statement and most will find it isn’t P. C. enough, but really folks how do we purport on one hand to be working towards a goal and at the same time point out the differences?
I mean no disrespect for anyone, and that is the point. While these awards speak to the achievement of a few deserving students, the nature of the awards themselves seems to be at cross purposes with what many have marched and prayed for these many years. Of course this is a much wider discourse than this article was intended to solicit and for that I apologize.
Again, my heartfelt congratulations to these find young men in recognition of their hard work.