About 900 additional winners of National Merit Scholarships financed by colleges and universities were announced Monday, July 17, by the National Merit Scholarship Corp.
Among them is Elijah S. Steres of Arlington High School, whose probable career is computer science. His merit scholarship is for Northeastern University.
Founded in 1898, Northeastern is a private research university in Boston and is a leader in interdisciplinary and use-inspired research, urban engagement, and the integration of classroom learning with real-world experience.
These merit-scholar designees join more than 3,200 other college-sponsored award recipients announced in June.
Officials of each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from among the finalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program who will attend their institution. College-sponsored awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship.
This year, 182 colleges and universities are sponsoring more than 4,000 Merit Scholarship awards. Sponsor colleges include 103 private and 79 public institutions located in 44 states and the District of Columbia.
This final group of winners brings the number of 2017 National Merit Scholars to more than 7,500. These distinguished high school graduates will receive scholarships for undergraduate study worth a total of over $32 million.
In addition to college-sponsored awards, two other types of National Merit Scholarships were offered — 2,500 National Merit $2,500 scholarships, for which all Finalists competed, and about 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for finalists who met criteria specified by their grantor organizations.
This year’s competition for National Merit Scholarships began when more than 1.6 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools took the 2015 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. Last September, about 16,000 Semifinalists were named on a state-representational basis in numbers proportional to each state’s percentage of the national total of graduatinghigh school seniors.
Semifinalists were the highest-scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than one percent of the nation’s seniors.
To become a finalist, each Semifinalist had to complete a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay, describing leadership positions and contributions in school and community activities, showing an outstanding academic record, and being endorsed and recommended by a high school official. Semifinalists also had to take the SAT and earn scores that confirmed their performance on the initial qualifying test. From the semifinalist group, about15,000 attained Finalist standing, and about half of the Finalists were chosen to receive National Merit Scholarships.
NMSC, a not-for-profit corporation that operates without government assistance, was founded in 1955 to conduct the National Merit Scholarship Program. Over the past 62 years, more than 330,000 outstanding young men and women have won National Merit Scholarships worth over $1 billion. The majority of awards offered each year are underwritten by approximately 420 independent corporate and college sponsors that support NMSC’s efforts to recognize scholastically talented youth and encourage the pursuit of academic excellence.
This news announcement was published Monday, July 17, 2017.
