By Gemma Q. Casas
Variety News Staff

A SENATOR says the CNMI Scholarship Office’s formula for determining who gets the eight annual government scholarships worth $15,000 each is crude and may be anomalous.
Sen. Paul A. Manglona, R-Rota, said the current formula is based on the students’ Grade Point Average and the Scholastic Achievement Test or the American College Testing scores based on an 80-20 percent ratio.
He said this formula is not accurate because the Scholarship Office first ranks the students according to their GPAs, then, multiplies those ranks by 80 percent.
The students’ SAT or ACT scores are also ranked from highest to lowest before being multiplied by 20 percent.
The students’ SAT and GPA scores are then added and are ranked from 1 to 8.
Manglona said this formula is “crude” and does not do justice to the top eight students who should qualify for the annual government scholarships.
The senator introduced Senate Bill 15-77 which seeks to amend the formula used in granting the CNMI Honor Scholarships.
The Senate passed S.B. 15-77 yesterday by a vote of 8-0. The bill now goes to the House.
According to the bill, the new formula will do away with the ranking and instead use the student’s actual GPA or SAT as a base.
“The formula by which applicants for the CNMI Honor Scholarships are ranked according to their grade point average and SAT or ACT scores needs to be clarified so that an applicant’s ranking reflects more accurately his GPA and test scores,” said Manglona.
But he said the Scholarship Office will still determine the distribution of the percentage to be used in weighing the applicant’s GPA and SAT.
According to the bill, other factors should be considered in granting the scholarships — the applicant’s extra-curricular activities; an evaluation of the difficulty of the courses taken by the applicant in high school; and consideration of at least two letters of recommendation.
It was Manglona who authored Senate Bill 14-18 which became Public Law 14-37 or the CNMI Scholarship Act of 2004.
The law gives the eight students who graduate from local high schools with the highest overall academic scores the chance to each get up to $15,000 in scholarship aid from the government.
The CNMI government has a separate financial aid program for other local college students under Public Law 7-32, which Manglona also authored.
On average, students receiving regular financial aid from the CNMI government get more than $2,000 per semester.