National Merit Scholarship Winners Announced

The National Merit $2500 Scholarship winners were announced today. Students were chosen from a talent pool of more than 15,000 outstanding finalists in the 2012 National Merit Scholarship Program.

To select scholarship winners, a committee of educators evaluated students' academic records, including difficulty level of subjects studied and grades; scores from two standardized tests; contributions and leadership in school and community activities; an essay written by the finalist; and a recommendation written by a high school official.

The winners are the finalists in each state judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills, and potential for success in rigorous college studies. They were selected by a committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors. These Scholars may use their awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university.

• ,
• Probable career field: Non-Profit Management

• Linda Jiang,
• Probable career field: Medicine

• Rebecca M. Lewis, Hinsdale Central 
• Probable career field: Business

• Robert J. Scales, Hinsdale Central
• Probable career field: Entrepreneurship (Venture Capital)

• Joseph N. Shayani, Hinsdale Central 
• Probable career field: Mathematics

• Claire B. Walker, Hinsdale Central 
• Probable career field: Medicine

• Sneha Kasuganti, Hinsdale Central
• Probable career field: Consulting

• Sichun Yang, Hinsdale Central
• Probable career field: Medicine

This year’s competition for National Merit Scholarships began in October 2010 when approximately 1.5 million juniors in about 22,000 high schools took the Preliminary sat/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (psat/nmsqt®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. Last fall, the highest-scoring participants in each state, representing less than

One percent of the nation’s high school seniors, were named semifinalists on a state representational basis. Only these 16,000 Semifinalists had an opportunity to continue in the competition.

From the semifinalist group, 15,000 students met the very high academic standards and other requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. By the conclusion of the 2012 program, about 8,300 Finalists will have earned the “Merit Scholar” title and received a total of over $35 million in college scholarships.

*The above information was provided by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.