Congratulations to Lucas Puig ’22 (Immaculata House) and Zachary Varner ’22 (Loyola House), who were named Semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program as a result of their PSAT scores! They are among 16,000 students out of 1.6 million entrants nationwide. They have the chance to advance as finalists, which will be announced in February of 2022.

Lucas’s top three choices for college include West Point, MIT, and Vanderbilt, where he plans to pursue a degree in the STEM field, likely computer science or computer engineering. He credits his parents for “pushing me to do the best I can.” He says he tries to “bring this mindset in and out of the classroom each day and work as hard as I can to succeed.” At Trinity, “Mr. Carr’s class really shaped my math (specifically calculus) skills. I thoroughly enjoyed his class and his lessons each day.” Lucas is excited for this year and all of the opportunities to come.

Zachary Varner is applying to many universities, but his top choices include Johns Hopkins, Stanford, MIT, and Georgia Tech, where he hopes to study biomedical engineering. He says that his success has been “influenced by a group of wonderful, talented teachers and my friends and classmates at Trinity.” Additionally he says that “the rigor of Trinity’s classes and the high standards expected of a Trinity student have inspired me to be a better learner and person. I am honored to have received this award, and I would like to thank Trinity for playing such an important role in helping me to achieve it.”

Congratulations to these students on this impressive academic achievement!