Bolingbrook Student Wins National Merit Scholarship

BOLINGBROOK, IL — The next group of 2021 National Merit Scholarship winners include Jeffrey L. Tilkin from Bolingbrook. Tilkin attended Plainfield East High School and after high school plans to study computer science at Florida State University.

The National Merit winner from Bolingbrook is among the more than 1,000 announced Monday to receive between $500 and $2,000 scholarships from colleges and universities across the country, the National Merit Scholarship Corp. said in a news release.

The additional winners join more than 3,100 other college-sponsored award recipients announced in June. The National Merit winners announced Monday will have their scholarships funded by the colleges and universities that they will attend. One hundred and sixty colleges and universities — including 85 private and 75 public schools — took part in the merit scholarship program in 2021.

An additional group of college-sponsored National Merit scholars will be announced in July, the scholarship corporation said. This group is part of the approximately 7,500 National Merit scholarship winners who will be selected by the end of 2021. National Merit scholarships via corporate-sponsored awards and the corporation's own $2,500 scholarships were announced earlier in the spring.

More than 1.5 million juniors nationally entered the 2021 National Merit scholarship program when they took the 2019 preliminary SAT/National Merit scholarship qualifying test, the corporation said. About 17,000 semifinalists, fewer than 1 percent of the country's high school seniors, were announced last fall.

Semifinalists had to write an essay and detail their extracurricular activities, awards and leadership positions to become a finalist. About half of the 16,000 finalists will be merit scholars by the end of the year, the corporation said.

(For more news and information like this, subscribe to the Bolingbrook Patch for free. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app; download the free Patch Android app here. Don't forget to like us on Facebook!)