Brentwood High Seniors Receive $25,000 in Scholarships

The senior class at received a total of $25,000 in scholarships from local businesses, organizations and private donations on Friday, said Ivy Hutchison, the college and career advisor for seniors. Seniors were given the money during an annual awards assembly.

Senior Alvin Lan was awarded a full scholarship through the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange program.

For the first time in at least seven years, a Brentwood student has been accepted on a full scholarship through the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange program. Lan will spend one year studying in Germany at a college preparatory high school while living with a German host family. His journey will include meetings with congressional leaders in Washington, DC before and after his trip, as well as a meeting with German dignitaries during a visit to Berlin. 

Hutchison said Lan is one of Brentwood's top students academically, and had received "hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend colleges across the United States, but instead, he is choosing to take this opportunity, which is wonderful." She said she didn't know the monetary value of the Congress-Bundestag program.

Graduate Ilona Kiss was recognized by U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis.  She was also honored as a National Merit Finalist and received a $2,500 scholarship from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. The honor is reserved for fewer than 15,000 high school seniors in the United States. Awards are based on students' PSAT score, which they take in the fall of their junior year. Kiss achieved this by taking the SAT instead of the PSAT during her junior year.

Hutchison said the students self-reported the scholarships that they had received from each of the institutions where they had been accepted, and that the aggregated total for these renewable scholarships is currently just more than $3.5 million. 

The top 3 percent of students in the state who took the ACT or the SAT, or who got an 800 or above in critical reading and a 790 math SAT score, and also students in the top fourth and fifth percentile in the state on the ACT/SAT are recognized as Bright Flight students. Fifteen BHS students were recognized as Bright Flight.

The Brentwood High School Alumni Association, the former Noon Optimists, The Brentwood Evening Optimists, BHS Parent/Teacher Organization, West Community Credit Union, Gene-Del Publishing and The Pulse Newspaper, Mr. and Mrs. Ned Wicks, Jim Jackson's family and the family of Al Frye and Karen Corbett all give scholarships to Brentwood seniors each year.