<p>Thomas Jefferson HSST (VA): 156
Stuyvesant (NY): 121
Mission San Jose (CA): 88</p>
<p>Congratulations to the aforementioned schools. Does anyone know of other high schools that have remarkable numbers of National Merit semifinalists for the high school class of 2012?</p>
<p>Do you know the size of the graduating classes of each of those schools? I’d like to know what proportion 156 is, for instance, of TJ’s graduating class.</p>
<p>Wow… 88 out of 500 kids were semifinalists at a public school? My public school’s graduating class is about 500 kids, and I was the only semifinalist. I guess public education at Florida really is that bad!</p>
<p>^We’re in the Silicon Valley, and hence have a lot of highly-educated parents (not to mention 75-80% Asians). So the parents value education more, which leads to higher SAT scores, which leads to NMSF. Our teachers and classes aren’t particularly good.</p>
<p>Well, that makes more sense. Not to stereotype, of course, but I’m one of about 4 Asian kids in my entire graduating class. Most of the kids here aren’t too bright to begin with, even though most of them come from good backgrounds and well educated families. The awful public education system doesn’t help, either.</p>
<p>Louisiana has 198 semifinalists TOTAL. 32 of those come from Jesuit High School in New Orleans. That’s 16.7% of the entire state from one school.</p>
<p>Our state requires all students to take the ACT therefore many students don’t take the SAT at all and do not do any prep for SAT. Of the schools around here who did have a high number of NMSF ( maybe 10 ) these students have generally been given some prep through the school.</p>