Timothy Magee, a home school graduate from Monticello, has received a prestigious National Merit Scholarship.

The National Merit Scholarship Corp. announced this week that approximately 1,600 students are receiving scholarships financed by colleges and universities, and 22 of those recipients are Mississippi high school students.

Magee’s scholarship is from Liberty University. Magee plans to live on campus and will major in computer science at the university, which is located in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Liberty is a private, religiously oriented university that enables students to engage in a career-focused discipline built on a foundation of liberal arts taught in Christian environment. The residential students enrolled at Liberty number over 12,000.

Magee

Remarking on the transition from being home schooled to going directly to a large out-of-state university, Magee said he is not intimidated by the move or the courses he will be taking.

“I think it will just be more hard school work,” he said Tuesday afternoon.

Magee, who began studying algebra in sixth grade, is no stranger to challenging coursework in academics. He feels being home-schooled gives him an advantage because he did not have to stay within a limit to comply with school standards, so there was nothing to keep him from studying ahead if he wanted to.

“It definitely gave me an advantage because I was allowed to work continuously and at my own pace,” remarked Magee.

His home school experience also allowed him to take more personally gainful electives such as cryptography and a computer programming class.

A well-rounded student, Magee did well in all of his classes, and said even though his family put an influence on the math and sciences, he also grew up with a love of reading any and all books he could get his hands on. His personal reading list includes books on numerical theories and quantum theory, but he also likes to read Shakespeare and the Bible.

Magee volunteers in his church, Monticello Baptist Church, and is also involved and interested in politics. He is a member of the Brookhaven Tea Party, but also attends his local Democratic and Republican party meetings to observe.

Magee talked of his future plans at Liberty and said he is not definite in his career path, but said he will most likely specialize in software design or computer security developing firewalls to protect online data bases such as banks or intelligence agencies.

Of Magee’s 11 siblings, he is the fourth oldest. His two oldest siblings, Joshua and Julie, also won National Merit Scholarships in the past, and another sibling, David, was a Merit semi-finalist.

Timothy is the son of Kevin and Laura Magee of Monticello.