3 East Lyme Students Among National Merit Scholarship Winners

EAST LYME, CT — The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) Wednesday released the names of the first group of more than 1,000 winners in the 64th annual National Merit Scholarship Program, which includes a trio of East Lyme High School students among the winners.

According to the corporation, scholars were selected from students who advanced to the Finalist level in the National Merit Scholarship competition and met criteria of their scholarship sponsors. Corporate sponsors provide National Merit Scholarships for Finalists who are children of their employees, who are residents of communities the company serves, or who plan to pursue college majors or careers the sponsor wishes to encourage.

Most of these awards are renewable for up to four years of college undergraduate study
and provide annual stipends that range from $500 to $10,000 per year. Some provide a single
payment between $2,500 and $5,000. Recipients can use their awards at any regionally accredited
U.S. college or university of their choice.

Funding for these National Merit Scholarships is provided by corporate organizations that
represent nearly all sectors of American industry, officials stated. Sponsors from the business community have underwritten awards offered in all 64 competitions, expending or committing more than $804 million to support the intellectual development of the nation’s scholastically talented youth.

More than 1.6 million juniors - who were students at approximately 22,000 high schools in the U.S. - entered the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2017 Preliminary SAT/NationalMerit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

That number was then reduced to about 16,000 semi-finalists, and by the conclusion of the 2019 competition, about 7,600 Finalists will have been selected to receive National Merit Scholarships totaling over $31 million.

The East Lyme High School students to receive National Merit Scholarships are:

Jonathan L. Tan
Probable career field: Electrical Engineering

NATIONAL MERIT PFIZER INC SCHOLARSHIP
Pfizer Inc. is a diversified company with plants in some 40 countries and sales in more than 100. Its approximately 90,000 employees produce and market pharmaceuticals, agricultural products, hospital products, and consumer products. These Merit Scholarship awards are provided by Pfizer Inc. to the children of employees.

Matthew G. Kung
Probable career field: Environmental Science

NATIONAL MERIT PFIZER INC SCHOLARSHIP
Pfizer Inc. is a diversified company with plants in some 40 countries and sales in more than 100. Its approximately 90,000 employees produce and market pharmaceuticals, agricultural products, hospital products, and consumer products. These Merit Scholarship awards are provided by Pfizer Inc. to the children of employees.

Connie Tang
Probable career field: Computer Science

NATIONAL MERIT PFIZER INC SCHOLARSHIP
Pfizer Inc. is a diversified company with plants in some 40 countries and sales in more than 100. Its approximately 90,000 employees produce and market pharmaceuticals, agricultural products, hospital products, and consumer products. These Merit Scholarship awards are provided by Pfizer Inc. to the children of employees.