Officials of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) just released the names of Semifinalists and Commended Scholars in the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program – including 9 BASIS Independent Brooklyn students. Jack B. ’23 was named as a Semifinalist and will continue on in the competition for some 7,140 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 million that will be offered next spring. Along with Jack, we proudly celebrate 8 Commended Scholars recognized by NMSC. 

High school juniors entered the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2023 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of Semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. 

“I’m so grateful to have watched these students grow over the years,” said Josh Harmon, Head of School at BASIS Independent Brooklyn. “They are all exceptional students and individuals. They are very deserving of the recognition.”

The honored students at BASIS Independent Brooklyn are:

• Jack B.
• Syun D.
• Samantha G.
• Charlie P.
• Daniel P.
• Alex R.
• Colton R.
• Nadine S.
• Jonah S.

While we could talk for hours about each and every one of our seniors, we wanted to share a brief overview of the students recognized by NMSC.

• Jack B. ’24 is a leading player on our Varsity Basketball team who helped grow the team through the years. He is one of the founding members of our Latinx Affinity Group and our school’s chapter of the Future Business Leaders of America.
• Syun D. ’23 graduated in June, and he is taking a gap year now before heading to Imperial College London to pursue an engineering degree. Syun joined our school in year one ten years ago. He founded the Aerospace Club at our school, and he was a proud member of Science Bowl with Mr. Winter.
• Samantha G. ’24 is the Leadership Club President and Co-Editor of The Grizzly student news site. She has been published in the University of Pennsylvania’s Journal of Urban Education and she has a column with the Red Hook Star-Revue. She joined our school when the doors opened in 2014.
• Charlie P. ’24 is interested in pursuing a career in medicine, and he won the World Food Prize New York Youth Institute as a Borlaug Scholar for his paper about obesity in Nauru. He traveled to Cornell’s Ithaca campus in March to present his results.
• Alex R. ’24 won the National Strogatz Prize for Math Communication, and national and local Scholastic Arts awards through the years. He is also a proud member of our Science Bowl, which won honors in the TEAMS competition last year. He is also a founding student who has helped design more Communication Journal covers than any other student!
• Colton R. ’23 graduated in the spring and is currently taking a gap year that involves meditating in Nepal without any devices. He was a key member of our band, where he led concerts with incredible drum performances.
• Nadine S. ’24 just joined our Bear community last year, and she won honors in Forensics Debate League competitions and went all the way to the New York State competition last year. Nadine is a dedicated tutor at the Red Hook Art Project, and she proudly works closely with the nonprofit on events.
• Jonah S. ’24. founded our Future Business Leaders of America chapter on campus, and he is the founding Director of Communications in our Leadership Club. Jonah was one of the first students at our school, and he is also one of our 15 seniors who joined BASIS Independent Brooklyn from day one.

From over 16,000 Semifinalists, more than 15,000 are expected to advance to the Finalist level, and in February they will be notified of this designation. All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from this group of Finalists. The scholarship winners of 2024 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join more than 375,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.

Network Results

Across our network of BASIS Independent Schools with 187 seniors across our five campuses, we are celebrating 38 Semifinalists and 69 Commended Scholars this year! Each state has different cutoff scores for the honors, and our BASIS Independent Schools are in some of the most competitive states — CA, NY, and VA — for semifinalist qualification. 

On behalf of all BASIS Independent Schools, we are so proud of you – and of all of our students – for your continual academic achievements both big and small. Please join us in congratulating our Bears!