Gadsden City High seniors among National Merit Finalists for 2023

Greg Bailey, The Gadsden Times
·2 min read

Three Gadsden City High School seniors — brothers Everett and William Roberts, and Nitin Nagarajan — have been named National Merit Finalists for the Class of 2023, according to a news release from the school.

The trio is in exclusive company: Only about 15,000 of the 1.5 million students who participated in this year’s National Merit Scholarship Program — 1% — by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test will earn finalist status.

And fewer than half of them will ultimately receive corporate- or college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

The Roberts brothers — two-thirds of a set of triplets; John Hiller is the other sibling — rank No. 1 (Everett) and No. 2 (William) in GCHS’ graduating class of 311. Nagarajan is No. 4.

Three Gadsden City High School seniors — William Roberts, Everett Roberts and Nitin Nagarajan — were honored Feb. 21 at the Gadsden City Council meeting for earning National Merit Finalist recognition. They are flanked at left by council President Kent Back and at right by Mayor Craig Ford.
Three Gadsden City High School seniors — William Roberts, Everett Roberts and Nitin Nagarajan — were honored Feb. 21 at the Gadsden City Council meeting for earning National Merit Finalist recognition. They are flanked at left by council President Kent Back and at right by Mayor Craig Ford.

All three have perfect 4.0 grade point averages.

Everett Roberts scored 35 on the ACT and earned College Board AP Scholar honors. He is a member of the National Honor Society, Beta Club, Mu Alpha Theta, Spanish National Honor Society, Top 10% and is a Titan Ambassador. He'll attend Auburn University this fall, majoring in engineering.

William Roberts scored 33 on the ACT and belongs to the same extracurricular organizations as his brother. He’ll attend the University of Alabama this fall, majoring in business and finance.

The brothers are the sons of Andrew and Kathy Roberts.

Nagajaran, the son of Dr. Sudhan Nagarajan and Indu Prasadh, scored 35 on the ACT and belongs to the same extracurricular organizations as the Roberts brothers. He also is a student member of Gadsden City Schools’ accreditation committee. He’s applied to Duke University, the University of Chicago and several Ivy League schools, and plans to major in biomedical engineering.

All three students are members of GCHS’ tennis team, Everett Roberts is on the swim team and all three are avid fantasy football players. They’re also active volunteers in the community.

The three were honored Feb. 21 in a reception at the school, and by the City of Gadsden at that day’s City Council meeting.

The NMSC’s mission, according to the corporation’s website, is to recognize academically talented students through its scholarship programs, with the goals of:

  • Promoting a wider and deeper respect for learning in general and for exceptionally talented individuals in particular;

  • Shining a spotlight on brilliant students and encouraging the pursuit of academic excellence at all levels of education;

  • Stimulating increased support from individuals and organizations that wish to sponsor scholarships for outstanding scholastic talent.

Scholarship recipients will be notified beginning this month and continuing into June.

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Gadsden City High students achieve National Merit Finalist status