MacArthur High School (MHS) senior Eric Wang receives two prestigious recognitions to end his senior year; Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence (OFE) members selected Wang to be in the 34th Oklahoma Academic All-State class, and National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) representatives selected Wang as a National Merit Scholarship recipient.
Wang’s OFE nomination was one of 495 from across the state, and he was selected as one of the top 100 public high school seniors in Oklahoma. According to the OFE website, Academic All-State is “Oklahoma’s most rigorous academic competition.”
The top 100 All-Stater students hail from 69 different school districts, and Wang is the only one from Lawton Public Schools (LPS).
“I was extremely honored when I learned of being named Academic All-State,” Wang said, “as it recognized my hard work. I also felt extremely grateful to my teachers who nurtured me and wrote me recommendation letters throughout this entire process.”
All-Stater students averaged a 4.2 GPA and a 33.9 on the ACT, with 15 recipients scoring a perfect 36, according to the OFE website. Additionally, 40 of this year’s All-State students are National Merit semifinalists, and two are National Hispanic Scholar semifinalists.
Along with his fellow All-State “classmates”, Wang will receive a $1,000 merit-based scholarship and a medallion.
That’s not all the scholarship money Wang will receive, as he will get an additional $2,500 scholarship for being a National Merit Scholarship recipient.
The 7,600 National Merit Scholarship winners are chosen from a talent pool of more than 15,000 Finalists in the 2020 scholarship program.
The score these finalists made on their Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) in October of their junior year in 2018 was the initial screening for this award. Afterwards, NMSC finalists were selected based on their academic record (including difficulty level of subjects studied and grades earned); contributions and leadership in school and community activities; a recommendation written by a high school official; and an essay written by the Finalist.
Wang is one of 27 Oklahoma National Merit Scholarship recipients, and the only one from LPS.
“To me, this award means reaffirmation of all the support I've received from my parents, teachers, and friends throughout high school,” Wang said.
Wang said he will attend Texas A&M in fall 2020 and major in Biomedical Engineering.
“I settled on this major because I was accepted into Brown Scholar to EnMed Program,” Wang said, “which offered me early acceptance in Tamu Medical School in the EnMed program at Houston Methodist Hospital. It is a unique track to earn an MD and a master's in engineering, allowing me to create innovative devices to directly better patients' lives.”