Crossroads News

Recent Graduates Awarded Scholarships

Ezra Barber ’21 and Addison Davis ’21 earn national recognition.
Two graduates of the Class of 2021, Ezra Barber and Addison Davis, earned prestigious academic awards this summer. Ezra was one of 500 recipients of the National Security Language Initiative for Youth Scholarship awarded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA); Addison was one of 4,100 National Merit Scholarship finalists awarded a college-sponsored scholarship.
 
Ezra, selected from roughly 2,500 applicants, recently concluded his six-week virtual summer intensive program to study Chinese. While past scholarship recipients participated in an immersion program abroad, this year’s intensive program had to be reimagined due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of traveling to China or Taiwan, Ezra honed his Mandarin-language skills and deepened his cultural understanding by virtually interacting with teachers, peers and organizations overseas.
 
“I thought the scholarship would be a great way to bridge the learning gap for Chinese between high school and college,” says Ezra, who plans to attend Carleton College in the fall. “I am so glad I chose to participate in the intensive because I have made so many new friends and connections because of it.”
 
Bowdoin College selected Addison from among their enrolled National Merit Scholarship finalists for the college-sponsored monetary award. Addison became a semifinalist after earning one of the highest scores on the 2019 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test in the state. As a semifinalist, he represented less than one percent of the nation’s seniors.
 
Addison advanced to become a finalist by completing an extensive application that showcased his academic and leadership achievements. At Crossroads, he was a member of the cross country and track teams and the Environmental and Outdoor Education Club, and he also served as a co-leader of Model United Nations during his senior year.
 
“I felt very grateful, and glad I had sought out this opportunity,” shares Addison. “I was also very surprised when I found out because the news came in a snail-mail letter, which was very old fashioned.”
 
Addison hopes to pursue environmental studies and possibly focus on marine biology at Bowdoin.
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