Preparing Students for National Merit

SOUTHAVEN — Like most principals, Southaven’s Jeff Gilder is digging this National Merit Scholar concept.
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It’s a scholarship awarded to a select number of students based on the scores of the PSAT test taken in their junior year of high school.

However, there’s more.

“It’s not necessarily the scholarship you’re looking for,” said Gilder. “It’s to get put on a list of colleges. They want to seek you out and they’re going to find you. And it’s not just Ole Miss or (Mississippi) State.

“It’s Harvard, it’s Yale, it’s Stanford, Notre Dame — it can be anywhere in the country.”
Southaven is just one of a couple of places in the Magnolia State where students can prepare themselves for that collegiate opportunity.

Read the full story in the Hattiesburg American

“It doesn’t matter if you’re in Mississippi, in Maryland or in Massachusetts,” Gilder said. “A National Merit semifinalist is a National Merit semifinalist — and we’ve worked hard to instill this program of how to get there.”

Two from the school reached that elite level this year.