Hazen student is finalist for National Merit Scholarship
March 4, 2010
By Tim Pfarr
Hazen High School senior Julie Vaisarova has been named a National Merit Scholarship program finalist. She is one of 15,000 students across the country to be named a finalist and have an opportunity to receive a scholarship.
To become a National Merit finalist, Vaisarova had to consistently perform well in her classes and on her PSAT, and she had to be endorsed by Hazen Principal John Kniseley.“I never ever thought that I would get here,” she said.
She said she found out about the scholarship program when she was a sophomore, and she said she took the PSAT — the first level of screening for the National Merit Scholarship program — just to get an idea of what the SAT was like. However, she scored well.
The National Merit Scholarship Foundation named Vaisarova as one of the 16,000 National Merit Scholarship semifinalists in September, and it named her one of the finalists in February. She will find out between March and June whether she will receive a National Merit Scholarship.
National Merit Scholarships are given to 8,200 students across the country, and those who receive them get $2,500.
She was already offered a scholarship from Willamette University in Salem, Ore., and she is considering Whitman College in Walla Walla, as well as Pomona University in Pomona, Calif.
Vaisarova said she hopes to study psychology and art history in college; her high school courses introduced her to the subjects.
“I really enjoyed looking at the more social aspects of history,” she said, referring to an Advanced Placement history course.
Vaisarova immigrated to the United States from the Czech Republic with her parents when she was 1. She is president of Hazen’s Earth Core Club, and she volunteers as a teen docent at the Bellevue Art Museum.
She also volunteers with the Newcastle Weed Warriors and in service projects through the YMCA.
However, she said her true passion is dance, and she teaches elementary school-aged children ballet, jazz dancing and other types of dance at Cornerstone Studios in Bellevue. She said she enjoys watching the creative process unfold in different ways with different children.
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