Two Baton Rouge Magnet High School students are among 800 National Achievement Scholarship winners.  Seniors Michael Dawkins and Lauren Tillery were the only finalists in the East Baton Rouge Parish School System for 2008. 

The National Achievement Program, which began in 1964, recognizes scholastically talented African-American students.  This year’s winners will receive a total of $2.6 million in scholarships, underwritten by 40 corporate organizations.

More than 140,000 students entered the National Achievement Scholarship competition by requesting consideration when they took the 2006 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) as high school juniors. 

1,300 Semifinalists advanced to the Finalist level, and all winners were selected based on SAT scores, recommendation by an official from their high school, a record of consistently high academic performance and an essay about personal interests, attainments and goals.