Senior Xavier Leung was recognized as the sole National Merit Semifinalist from Moanalua High School this year. Out of a total of 57 from the state, Leung joined students from schools including Punahou, Iolani, Mililani, and others from all over Hawaii. Nearly 16,000 other high-scoring students from all over the nation were also recognized. On the line: nearly $28 million in scholarships to be offered next spring.
In order to qualify, Leung scored in the top 1 percent of students taking the PSAT; a notable achievement considering that nearly 1.3 million juniors took the qualifying test last fall. This recognition was not handed to him, however. It took practice and time in order to test at such a high level.
“I bought a practice book from Barnes & Nobles,” Leung said. “There were 10 tests. So I would do maybe 1 or 2 sections per week to prepare and after I had been doing that for a while, I realized my weakness is in English so I just focused more on doing the readings.”
One of the keys to his success was an early start.
“I started preparing from sophomore year so I had quite a lot of time,” he said.
This allowed him to get comfortable before taking the qualifying test in junior year.
When the results came out, Leung was joyous but not surprised.
“I took the SAT before and I got a pretty good score. I was just a little bit anxious because I looked up the cutoff [score] from last year and my score was right there, so I didn’t know if I would make it or not,” he said.
About 95 percent of semifinalists are expected to become finalists and receive some form of recognition and scholarships. The requirements include writing an essay and filling out the application, which Leung submitted. However, he is still waiting for an answer, which is scheduled to be released in February.
In the meantime, Leung is busy working on college essays and his other college applications. In addition to being National Merit Semifinalist, he is also one of a couple Questbridge Finalists from Moanalua. Questbridge is a prestigious program which matches low-income and first-generation students with partner universities, including Stanford, Yale, and MIT.
Questbridge is also a partner with Leung’s top choices of colleges. He currently envisions Brown University in Rhode Island or Williams College in Massachusetts as his school of choice. In fact, he recently did a fly-in program where he got to visit the campus of Williams, all expenses paid.
“I think the students there were really fun to talk to and they’re very creative and expressive. I think doing fly-in programs really help you to get a better understanding. I thought Williams wouldn’t be a good fit for me just because it’s so far away and distant from the city. But after I landed there, I realized that maybe I don’t care about the location that much if I have a good student life,” Leung said.
Regardless of the school, he hopes to study comparative literature in college and envisions being a professor as one of his career goals.
“In comparative literature, you choose multiple texts in different languages or different cultures…You’re just thinking what meanings they bring towards whatever you’re working on and you apply literary theories,” he said.
Any student going to college might think that test scores are an important factor in being accepted. Leung’s advice to other students is to not stress too much about them because after all, it is only one part of the application process.
“I just don’t think we should stress too much about it and instead we should put more time focusing on doing extracurriculars. And really just think, instead of focusing on the goals of college applications, we should focus more on being a better person overall,” Leung said.