On January 25th, three City High seniors–Evelyn Smith ’18, Edie Knoop ’18, and Jakob Roggy ’18–found out they were Presidential Scholar semifinalists from the US Department of Education. Smith, a semifinalist, initially thought it was a scam.

“There’s a lot of programs that’ll be like ‘Hey, you should fly yourself out here so we can give you a certificate that says, ‘I got a 3.5 GPA,’” Smith, a semifinalist, said. “But it actually redirected to the government.”

The majority of the students selected as semifinalists received high marks on the ACT or SAT. 69 students were selected from all over Iowa for this stage. Smith received a score of 1570 on the SAT and will be applying to be a finalist for the scholarship.

After that selection process, roughly 160 students will be nationally selected to receive the U.S. Presidential Scholarship.