Three Ballard High School seniors, Joel Dunkelberg, Claire Lust and Elliot Ransom, have been named National Merit Scholar Finalists.

The National Merit Scholarship Program is an academic competition for recognition and scholarships that began in 1955. High school students enter the program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarships qualifying test (PSAT/NMSQT)-a test which serves as an initial screen of approximately 1.5 million entrants each year-and by meeting published program entry/participation requirements.

“It’s largely based on test scores,” said Ransom. “First you have to get PSAT scores. Even if you get a good SAT score afterwards you are not eligible unless you get a good index on the PSAT.”

Ransom is also the alto-sax section leader and has an ear and passion for music. But he's considering going into an aero-space engineering major and is also looking at other engineering options at both the University of Washington and Stanford.

Dunkelburg, also interested in going into engineering at the University of Washington, is involved in the Project Lead the Way Academy, a pre engineering course at Ballard, and is the chess go-to-guy as chess team captain.

Lust is interested in studying something in the sciences and is involved in orchestra and the Biotech Academy at Ballard. She has been accepted into the University of Washington and is still waiting to hear back from a few other schools.

Out of 16,000 semifinalists named in September 2008 who have met all requirements, these three students have advanced to finalist standing in the competition.

“Whittling it down to semi and finalists is just making sure people turn in the right paperwork and making sure the PSAT and SAT scores aren’t a fluke,” Dunkelburg said.

“Most people who are semi-finalists who are still eligible will be finalists if they don’t screw up paper work,” Ransom added.

All agreed that even if they are not chosen, having the recognition of being a finalist will be an honor in itself and wouldn't look so bad on college applications either.

“The cash is nice but its not real earth shattering, but it’s just a nice honor,” said Dunkelburg.

The selection of 8,200 Merit Scholarship winners will be chosen from the group of more than 15,000 finalists.

Three types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered in 2009; 2,500 single-payment National Merit $2,500 Scholarships, for which all Finalists will be considered; about 1,100 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards; and 4,600 college-sponsored awards, for which only those who will attend their respective sponsor institutions are considered.

Some good advice these Ballard seniors give those who are striving to do well on aptitude tests is to relax, don’t worry and read.

“You just can’t worry about it,” said Dunkelburg. “The way the tests are made is almost impossible to study for them. You can go through thousands of flash cards for words and the odds that any of those words coming up in the test is so miniscule.”

“If I could give one piece of advice it’s just to read a lot of books,” Ransom said. “It’s kind of just how much you remember. I could be reading a word for the first time but if it’s something that is really obvious from the context you don’t need to know the meaning of the word.”

Lust said a good portion of it can come down to common sense.

“I have more than one thing going for me, which can be said for these guys also,” Lust said.

Scholarship offers will be mailed to the winners this month.