Officials of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced today that Woodlawn senior Terin Patel-Wilson has been named a Winner in the 2011 National Achievement Scholarship Program. Terin is one of the 800 Black American high school seniors who have been designated scholarship winners – each winner receives an award of $2,500. Terin is a Mooresville resident who has attended Woodlawn for the past 9 years.

Terin was also named a National Merit Commended Scholar earlier this year, along with 3 of his Woodlawn classmates.

More than 160,000 students entered the 2011 National Achievement Scholarship Program by requesting consideration when they took the 2009 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) as high school juniors. In September 2010, 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 of their high school; earning SAT scores that confirm their PSAT/NMSQT performance; and writing an essay. From the semifinalist pool, some 1,300 advanced to the finalist level, and all National Achievement Scholarship winners were selected from this group of outstanding students.