Century High School seniors Erin Hocking and Emily Smith are modest.

"I'm surprised Emily and I are the only ones who received it out of only six," Erin said.

She and Emily received $2,500 scholarships from the National Merit Scholarship program, and were each one of six finalists at their school for an award.

"I know there are students who scored better than I did," Emily said, referring to the qualifying tests for the National Merit Scholarship.

The National Merit program awards corporate-sponsored scholarships and college-sponsored scholarships in addition to the scholarship Erin and Emily received. The college-sponsored scholarships will be announced in late May and mid-July.

So far, Emily and Erin are two of only three students in the Bismarck-Mandan area to receive a scholarship from the program. Jayden Zeigler, of Mandan, also received a $2,500 scholarship sponsored by the Modine Manufacturing Company Foundation. Jayden attends Center High School.

It is an 18-month process to earn a National Merit scholarship. It starts with taking the PSAT test during the fall of the junior year. Then they fill out applications, write essays and gather recommendations. Students who are notified they are semi-finalists take the SAT to continue in the process.

"It's not so much test scores as volunteering and essays," Erin said.

Erin volunteers at St. Alexius Medical Center in the medical library. She copies the table of contents of medical journals so doctors can select what articles they want to read. Then she copies the requested articles.

"Usually, the articles do not go over my head, and I understand," she said about the ones she's read.

She also volunteered to help out at the Mantree Youth Conference in North Carolina. She has attended, and now she will help out this summer. About 300 students attend the conference for a week, and it runs for six weeks.

Emily volunteers at her church, First Evangelical.

"I've put in 100 hours so far," she said.

She helps with fundraising, such as helping with concessions at the Community Bowl or volunteering time at her church's Bible camp.

In addition to church, she has spent time volunteering for Teen Court, and one summer she went on a mission to Mexico.

As for college, Emily is undecided as to where she'll attend. What she'll study depends on where she'll go. If she goes to Bethel University in St. Paul, Minn., she'll study English, and if she goes to North Dakota State University, she'll study architecture.

Erin on the other hand knows she wants to study political science, but where is less clear. She was accepted to Macalester College in St. Paul and wait listed at Harvard.

"It's a crapshoot who gets in," she said. She's staying on the wait list, although she knows her chances are slim to be taken off of it, she said.

In the meantime, the girls want the stress of their last weeks of high school to be over. This summer they'll work and look forward to the fall.

Other National Merits Scholarship recipients are Timothy Cooper and Kelsey Gustafson, North High School, Fargo; Emily Burkland, Thompson High School, Grand Forks; and Greg Brockman, Red River High School, Thompson.

(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@;bismarcktribune.com.)