Fountain Hills High School has another high-flying academic success story on its hands, with senior Wesley Francis-Mead being named a National Merit Scholarship finalist for 2017.

Begun back in 1955, the National Merit Scholarship program awards students for high achievement on either the PSAT or the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Along with doing exceptionally well on the test, students must plan on enrolling full time in college, as the bulk of the benefits for the program include scholarship eligibility.

According to information provided by the NMS Program, of the 1.6 million entrants, only about 50,000 will be included in the initial selection process.

Of that total, about 34,000 receive letters of commendation for being a National Merit Semifinalist. In other words, only about 16,000 students are named finalist, of which FHHS’ Francis-Mead is now counted.

As a finalist, Francis-Mead is eligible for various types of scholarships, including those provided directly from National Merit, as well as corporate-sponsored merit scholarships and those sponsored by colleges. Most universities offer some sort of scholarship program for National Merit finalists.

Francis-Mead learned he had been named a finalist in late February.

“I found out from a letter in the mail,” Francis-Mead said. “It was pretty relieving. There is a lot of cost reduction for college, if you are a National Merit finalist.”

Francs-Mead said he is planning to attend Arizona State University, where finalists receive approximately $16,000 off of their annual tuition.

Francis-Mead said the road to being a finalist was pretty involved.

“Once you take the PSAT and get you score back, they inform you if it’s likely you will be a part of the National Merit selection,” he continued. “That was last school year. This year, during the first semester, I was informed I was a semi-finalist.”

From there, Francis-Mead had to undergo an application process including “a lot of meetings,” a recommendation letter, and an essay.

Francis-Mead said he’s happy to have been selected as one of the 2017 finalists.

“It’s pretty encouraging,” he added. “Going through high school…it can be easy to get buried by all of the stuff that’s going on. I think this has helped encourage me to work harder this year and try to finish high school on a good note.”

Francis-Mead said that, at the moment, he plans to attend the Barrett honors college at ASU and study linguistics.

“After that, I’ll probably pursue a graduate degree in some sort of neuroscience related to linguistics,” he added. “In middle school I started writing a lot and I really like language. If I can work to help people with language problems and help create things, like artificial intelligence or anything that makes society better, I think that would be pretty fulfilling.”

Looking back, Francis-Mead said he thanks his parents for their support, as well as his various language teachers who taught him that “language is more than just words.”

“It’s more about psychology and the meaning behind those words,” he added.