NHS Senior Named National Merit Semifinalist

By Tanjua Damon

Numbers may not mean that much to some people, but for high school students who want to be considered for a National Merit Scholarship, it is all about numbers.

Newtown High School senior Brendan Krueger, 17, is a National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist this year. He scored a 1510 on the PSAT to put him is this category with more than 16,000 other high school seniors. He received a 1590 on the SAT.

Brendan has been looking at a few colleges – Harvey Mudd College in Southern California, UConn, Cornell, Princeton, and Rutgers – where he would like to study architectural engineering. Brendan also enjoys physics.

He likes the campus of Harvey Mudd, but realizes his chances of being a Nutmeg scholar are good and could end up being a student at UConn next fall with full tuition being provided.

“I just really like the whole atmosphere [at Harvey Mudd],” he said. “I’ll probably end up going to UConn with a full ride.”

Brendan is currently taking four AP courses – physics, psychology, economics and Spanish – as well as creative writing and government. In the spring he will continue the AP courses and take women’s studies and a computer class.

He offers a bit of advise to students taking the PSAT and the SAT for college.

“I just try not to stress out too much,” Brendan said. “If there’s nothing I can do about it, why stress about it? I just relaxed.”

Understanding what the questions are asking on the standardized test is more beneficial than memorizing the types of problems, according to Brendan.

“You don’t want to memorize the problems,” he said. “Understand the concepts. Don’t stress out and go to bed early.”

He also encourages students to challenge themselves and take classes that may be hard for them.

“When you get that first job they will be looking at grades because they have nothing else to look at,” Brendan said. “Challenge yourself so you know how well you can do.”

Brendan is a member of the Math Team and volunteers time as a tutor at the high school. He is also active in his church youth group at Walnut Hill Community Church. He works at Big Y during the summer.

He is the son of Kurt and Maureen Krueger. He has an older brother, Corey, at UConn and a sister, Alyssa, who is in the sixth grade.