Published: September 20, 2008 02:15 pm      

Academy senior NMS semifinalist

San Marcos Baptist Academy senior David Abugaber was announced this month as one of 16,000 semifinalists in the 54th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.

David is from San Marcos and is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Jorge Abugaber.

He and the other semifinalists will have an opportunity to continue in the competition for one of about 8,200 National Merit Scholarships, worth more than $35 million, that will be offered next spring.

David qualified as a semifinalist through his scores on the 2007 PSAT, the initial screen of program entrants.

More than 1.5 million juniors in over 21,000 high schools took the 2009 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents fewer than one percent of U.S. high school seniors and includes the highest scoring entrants in each state.

A sixth-year student at San Marcos Academy, David is president of the National Honor Society, participates in band and is a member of the JROTC Cadet Corps, where he serves as Battalion Personnel Officer and Corps Adjutant.

He is currently a cadet second lieutenant. This past summer, he attended a pre-college program at Carnegie Mellon University on scholarship, maintaining a 4.0 GPA, and last summer he participated in the Ross Mathematics Program at Ohio State University.

Because he will graduate high school a year early, David said he is considering spending a year abroad to study another language before he enters college.

David has two older brothers who also graduated from San Marcos Academy.

Jorge Abugaber, Class of 2004, is a recent graduate of Harvard University and Aaron Abugaber, Class of 2008, is now attending Johns Hopkins University.