Evanston Student Wins National Merit Scholarship

EVANSTON, IL — An Evanston Township High School student is among the final group of National Merit Scholarship winners to be announced this year.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation on Monday released the names of the last group of approximately 1,000 recent high school graduates to be awarded college-sponsored merit scholarships.

They join the more than 3,100 recipients of the college-sponsored merit scholarships announced last month, about 2,500 winners of $2,500 cash scholarships and about 1,000 winners of corporate-sponsored scholarships.

Last fall, nine Evanston students were named among the approximately 16,000 semifinalists in the National Merit scholarship program, with eight of them graduating Evanston Township High School and one attending Beacon Academy.

Qualification was based on scores from the 2019 preliminary SAT test. This year's semifinalists from Evanston were:

• Zachary Bahar
• Benjamin Barbaro
• Celia Chambers
• Ian Dunbar
• Alexander Johnson
• Camilla Mancini
• Madeline Rodriguez
• Ezra Seinberg
• Anna Taufen

Out of those finalists, one was named a winner of a 2021 National Merit Scholarship:

Ian Dunbar, a recent Evanston Township High School graduate, was awarded a National Merit University of Chicago scholarship.

Dunbar intends to pursue a career as a college professor, according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation's announcement.

Last year, seven members of ETHS's graduating class named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists. Three members of the class of 2020 were awarded scholarships.

There are 160 colleges and universities sponsoring merit scholarships this year, including 85 private schools and 75 public ones.

A total of 7,500 students have been awarded scholarships this year from the Evanston-based National Merit Scholarship Corporation, out of about 17,000 semifinalists.

To be become a finalist, students had to submit a detailed application containing an essay, a list of leadership positions and community contributions and a recommendation from a high school official.