Two students from Antilles School have captured honors that only a few high school seniors across the United States and its territories ever achieve.
Elizabeth Streibich and Abraham Tarapani have been named semifinalists in the 45th Annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Streibich is the daughter of attorney Bruce Streibich and former Antilles School teacher Kathy Streibich, who died in February of this year. Tarapani is the son of Abe and Wendy Tarapani of Diamonds International.
The student's selection for top honors were the results of the 1998 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test which the two took as high school juniors. The test is sponsored by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.
Nearly 1.2 million students in more than 20,000 high schools took the exam, and from that group approximately 16,000 students qualified as semifinalists. Fewer than 1 percent of graduating students under the U.S. flag qualify for this honor.
Neither student is totally overwhelmed by the honors. Both are taking it in stride. Streibich said, "It's not such a big deal. I mean I am happy. It makes me feel more connected to the mainland." She plans to attend either Emerson College or Yale University, but hasn't made any final decisions yet. As to what her field of study will be, she simply hasn't decided — there's lots of time for that.
Tarapani plans to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, but that's as much as he is letting on right now. He allows that he is excited about the honor, but said "this school does have a history of high honor students."
"This is the highest honor these students can earn," said Mark Marin, Antilles headmaster, who definitely is excited, "it is a reflection of their talents and abilities. Also, it speaks well for the school and our faculty who encourage and teach students critical thinking. I'm very proud of everybody."
Streibich and Tarapani must now be named finalists in order to be eligible for scholarship awards for college undergraduate study.
Three types of merit scholarship awards will be offered: 2,400 sponsored by the Merit Scholarship Corporation; 1,200 by corporations and 4,000 by colleges. To qualify as finalists, the students must confirm their earlier performance with high SAT scores, outstanding high school academic records and a recommendation from their principals. This is a big order, but it doesn't appear to be anything the two talented students cannot achieve. The scholarship recipients will be announced in the spring of 2000.