Once again, Cardinal Mooney High School is proud to announce that a senior has been named a semi-finalist by the National Merit Scholarship Program. Zachary Liptak is one of 16,000 students nationally, who have been selected to compete for 8,000 Merit Scholarship Awards valued at over $32 million, that will be awarded next spring. Those that are named semifinalists represent less than one percent of U.S. High School seniors. He is the twenty-second student at Cardinal Mooney to be named a semifinalist since 1987.

Zach is the son of M/M Ron Liptak of Poland, they are parishioners of St. Charles Church. He has received the Degree of Distinction from the National Forensic League and the Cardinal Mooney High School Academic Achievement Award. Zach was named the Outstanding Student in German III last year and was also named a delegate to Buckeye Boys State. He is an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Silver Palm Award. His activitivies include National Honor Society, Future Business Leaders of America, Service, German, and Science Clubs. In addition, he is active with the drama and theatre clubs. He was a member of the freshmen football team and has played hockey for four years. Zech intends to enroll at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and major in Electrical Engineering and Architecture.

More than 1.3 million students in over 21,000 U.S. high schools entered the 2004 Merit Program competition when they were juniors by taking the 2002 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test which served as the initial screening of program entrants. Semifinalists are the highest scoring entrants in each state and represent less than one percent of the state's seniors.

The next step for Semifinalists is to fulfill requirements to advance to Finalist standing, a prerequisite to consideration for a Merit Scholarship Award. To advance to Finalist status, Semifinalists must have an outstanding high school academic record, be recommended by their high school principal, and submit SAT scores that confirm their earlier qualifying test performance. Approximately 90 percent of the Semifinalist or 15,000 students are expected to advance to finalist level.