Lynbrook High School seniors Joshua Burton, Joseph Cappadona and Tim Hung have all been named semifinalists in the 59th annual National Merit Scholarship Competition.
As semifinalists, they will have the opportunity to compete with 16,000 other semifinalists for some 8,000 National Merit Scholarships to be offered next spring.
The seniors were among the 1.5 million juniors who entered the 2014 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2012 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, commonly known as the PSAT. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, which represents less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.
To be eligible to advance to the finalist stage of the competition, all three will be required to submit a detailed scholarship application with information about their academic records, participation in school and community activities, leadership abilities, honors and awards. Scholarship award winners will be selected from among the finalists, who will be announced in February.
A member of the National Honor Society, Burton is a 2013 AP Scholar. Active in Mathletes and science research, he earned highest honors in the 2012 Long Island Science Congress. A staff member of the Lynbrook High School newspaper Horizon, Burton writes for a satirical sports website called the Heckler and the Bloguin Network’s NBA Blog. He also founded an independent Brooklyn Nets blog. Burton has competed throughout his high school career on the varsity tennis team.
An AP Scholar with Honor, Cappadona s a member of the National Honor Society as well as the Tri-M Music Honor Society. A Mathletes member, he was a 2013 American Invitational Mathematics Examination Qualifier, and a member of the Nassau County All-Star Mathematics Team. He placed third in the Grade 11 division of the Nassau County Math Tournament. Active in science research, he was a Third Pace Grand Award winner at the Long Island Science and Engineering Fair and conducted original research this past summer at the prestigious Garcia MRSEC Summer Research Program at Stony Brook University. Cappadona is also a member of the varsity baseball and basketball teams.
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Hung is an AP Scholar and a member of the National Honor Society and the Tri-M Music Honor Society. The robotics team head programmer, he and his team scored the most points in their division at the FIRST Tech Challenge. Hung has also participated in Mathletes and Science Olympiad competitions. An accomplished musician, he is a four-time All-County violinist who plays in the high school chamber orchestra and string quartet. He is also captain of the varsity cross-country team.
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