McGill-Toolen, St. Michael students selected as National Merit finalists

February 22, 2024

By The Catholic Week
McGill-Toolen Catholic High School and St. Michael Catholic High School are both home to National Merit finalists.
McGill-Toolen’s Russell Ginn, Anthony Hantouche, Margaret Heller, Christopher Hunt, Brendan Russell and Colson Tidikis as well as St. Michael’s Trey Bauldin were all named National Merit Semifinalists in the fall and all seven recently discovered they were named finalists.
They are part of a group of 15,000 finalists and are among the top 1% of academically talented high school seniors from across the country who are in the competition for some 7,140 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 million that will be awarded in the spring.
The six National Merit finalists are the most for McGill-Toolen since 2019.
“We were delighted and very proud to learn last fall that McGill-Toolen had six National Merit Semi-Finalists. We are now doubly proud that all of them are Finalists,” said McGill-Toolen President Fr. Bry Shields.
“These students are obviously gifted, and we are blessed to have had them as students during their high school years. At McGill-Toolen, they were immersed in a culture rooted in faith and the quest for excellence, and here they found the inspiration and formation to enable them to reach the heights of academic achievement. We are proud to honor these six students, and to congratulate their parents for their sacrifices and love, as well as the teachers who guided them to success.”