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CNMI Scholarship denies Alpino’s appeal
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Posted on Dec 03 2011
By Moneth Deposa
Reporter
Reporter
The CNMI Scholarship Advisory Board denied with finality the appeal of Katelyn Alpino’s family to recalculate and approve her Honors scholarship application this semester.
In a statement posted on the agency’s website, the board cited how eligible applicants are determined and emphasized that CNMI Scholarship Office has a different criteria and mechanism in determining its scholars compared to the Public School System.
Katelyn Alpino was Rota High School’s valedictorian last school year but was denied the Honor scholarship grant.
“The board would like to remind scholarship applicants from Tinian and Rota that its Honors Scholarship awards are not automatically awarded to the valedictorian and salutatorian from each island,” the board statement said.
It explained that under Public Law 7-32, the Post Secondary Education Scholarship of 1990, the Honors scholarship is directly awarded to the valedictorian and salutatorian on Tinian and Rota. However, this law was amended by P.L. 14-37, eliminating the automatic awarding of financial assistance to the valedictorian and salutatorian on the two islands.
The board advised this year’s high school seniors who are considering competing for an Honor scholarship that the board is legally bound to use the statutorily mandated criteria.
“It is important to note that our criteria to determine awards are different and separate from the criteria the PSS uses to award distinctions to its top graduates. What this means is that because of differing award criteria used by the board and PSS, it is entirely possible for a student to receive one award and not the other,” the board statement added.
Katelyn Alpino’s father, Arthur Alpino, confirmed receiving the board’s decision last Tuesday and plans to write a letter to the board.
Heis daughter is now a freshman at the Philadelphia University taking up a pre-medicine course.
