SPARKS — Graduation could not come sooner for Lily Daylami, a senior at Wooster High School who will “sign” her letter of intent with the University of Nevada, Reno on Tuesday. No, she is not an athlete. She is a National Merit Scholarship finalist, a prestigious honor that awards academic excellence in only a few high school students in each state each year.

“I’ve been looking forward to this all year,” Daylami said of graduation. “I’m ready to move on to bigger and better things.”

Daylami enrolled in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program at Wooster as a junior after rigorous tests and intense homework habits, which have propelled her to high academic standing and a $15,000 sponsorship from the university for being a Merit Scholarship finalist.

“The paperwork (for the scholarship) was surprisingly light,” she said, adding that she and two other students were in the semifinals for the scholarship. “It never felt like a competition, we all wanted the three of us to get it and we were cheering for each other.”

Aside from maintaining her studies, Daylami has participated in the Wooster ROTC program since she entered the school as a freshman. She says that the skills she has acquired in the ROTC are things that the classroom cannot offer her.

“ROTC gives you real skills, like public speaking and how to be a good person,” Daylami said, acknowledging that she has been lucky in the sense that she can easily absorb and retain information she learns in her classes. “(ROTC) is not like math. You don’t have to wait until the next higher class to apply what you have learned.”

With three years of experience in the ROTC, Daylami became a staff member in the program as a senior where she has been training with her officers on the techniques and strategies needed to become an officer herself.

“I want a career out of it,” she said. “I would like to go wherever there is a need. Some people seem so content to waste life, but I don’t see a reason to let it be easy. I want to be a contributing member of society.”

Daylami plans to earn her bachelor’s degree in logistics at UNR while participating in the ROTC program, where she feels that she might have a leg up on some of the other incoming freshmen. She believes the Army ROTC at UNR will prepare her to eventually enter the Army after college.

“I know it would be easier on my family if I didn’t join the Army at all,” she said. “I personally would love to travel. I would love to go as far and as fast as I can.”

In achieving her degree in logistics, Daylami said she would like to be in charge of coordinating and planning Army operations one day. As for her finishing up school at Wooster, she said she does not flaunt her academic excellence to others. She finds it best to simply continue working diligently in her classes and, in her words, “do what I always do.”

“(The Merit Scholarship achievement) is something not everybody knows about me, but it is something I am pretty proud of,” Daylami said.