School administrators recognized the BASD 2025 National Merit Scholars at the March 17 board meeting. Superintendent Dr. Jack Silva was accompanied by interim Liberty HS Principal and Supervisor of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Rick Amato.

The NMSP is an academic competition for high school students planning to attend university, managed by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, a privately funded nonprofit. Each year, about 1.6 million students from around 22,000 high schools enter the competition, and they are evaluated for critical reading skills, problem-solving abilities in mathematics and writing skills.

Competition rounds are high scorers, commended, semifinalist and Finalist. High scorers include the top 50,000 participants, or approximately the 96th percentile; commended awardees include 34,000 of 50,000; semifinalists include about 16,000 of the 50,000 participants. National Merit semifinalists have additional application requirements eliminating, some from becoming finalists.

The final round of competition includes 15,000 of the 50,000 top participants, or 15,000 of 1.6 million total participants. The finalists in each state are judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills and potential for success in rigorous college studies. Each earns a $2,500 scholarship.

BASD is very proud to announce and recognize the accomplishments of three senior students in 2025: Liberty senior Levi Carolan was named a finalist, while fellow Liberty senior Stephenie Zheng, and Freedom HS senior Sofia Dubrovskaya were named commended awardees.