Cheshire Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

CHESHIRE, CT — Five students from Cheshire High School have been named semifinalists for the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program.

Zachary J. Eisbach, Riley J. Lanz, Tyler Y. Tan, Austin Xu and Vincent Zhu are among the 16,000 high-school seniors who will now go on to compete for the scholarships that will be offered next spring.

According to a news release from the National Merit Scholarship Program, about 95 percent of the semifinalists will be named as finalists in the 67th year of the academic competition.

Of those, about half will win a scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.

More than 1.5 million students applied for the highly competitive scholarship and the semifinalists represent less than 1 percent of all high-school seniors in the United States. For each state, the number of semifinalists is proportional to that state's percentage of the total graduating seniors in the country.

High school juniors entered the 2022 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the

2020 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.

The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state's percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

To become a finalist, students and a high-school official must submit a detailed application. The application must contain information about a student's academic record, leadership abilities, the honors and awards they've received and more.

Students will find out in February whether they make it to the finalist stage. Every finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit $2,500 scholarships on a state-representational basis. Also, about 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by 220 corporations and business organizations, and about 180 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 4,000 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards.

The scholarship winners will be announced beginning in April 2022.