Jefferson, Blair Lead Nation In Intel Search Semifinalists - washingtonpost.com: Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria and Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring together produced 26 of 300 semifinalists nationwide in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search for 2007, the technology company announced yesterday.
The schools, which draw students with conspicuous math and science abilities from Northern Virginia and Montgomery County, respectively, ranked first and second for the number of semifinalists from a single campus in the annual contest. Jefferson had 14; Blair had 12.
The D.C. region yielded 31 semifinalists in all, 10 percent of the nation's total, with one each from Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Walt Whitman and Thomas Wootton high schools in Montgomery, Eleanor Roosevelt in Prince George's County and the private Sidwell Friends School in the District. Jefferson and Blair are perennial contenders because of their math-science magnet programs.
A "prize patrol" from the talent search visited Blair yesterday to present the school's semifinalists with $1,000 checks; schools receive a matching sum for each honoree. A similar ceremony for Jefferson's 14 semifinalists was canceled because of a power outage at the school.
Forty finalists will be announced Jan. 31. On March 8, finalists will travel to Washington for a week-long event, culminating with 10 students receiving scholarships totaling $500,000. The top winner will receive a $100,000 scholarship.
The talent search, founded in 1942, is the nation's oldest and most highly regarded pre-collegiate science contest.
