Trio Of Recent ETHS Grads Awarded National Merit Scholarships

EVANSTON, IL — Three recent Evanston Township High School graduates have been awarded National Merit scholarships. Last fall, seven ETHS seniors were named semifinalists in the program.

Eleanor Ward, who intends to study economics at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., was awarded a $2,500 cash scholarship from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation's own funds last month.

The Evanston-based nonprofit picks 2,500 winners of the cash scholarships among those judged to have the "strongest combination of accomplishments, skills and potential for success in rigorous college studies." Each state's number of winners is proportional to its share of the nation's population.

And earlier this month, two more members of Evanston's class of 2020 were awarded National Merit scholarships sponsored by the colleges they plan to attend.

Samuel Tannen, who plans to study biology, was awarded a scholarship to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Ellison Weiler, who intends to study fine arts, was awarded a scholarship to Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

Each college-sponsored scholarship provides between $500 and $2,000 every year for up to four years of undergraduate study, according to National Merit.

There are 167 colleges and universities underwriting about 4,100 college sponsored scholarships in 2020. They include 92 private schools and 75 public ones spanning 43 states and Washington, D.C. The winners are picked from about 15,000 National Merit finalists by school officials from the sponsoring institutions.

Another approximately 800 scholarship winners will be announced in July, bringing the total number of winners to about 7,600, according to the nonprofit. More than $30 million in scholarships will have been awarded by the end of this year's competition.

Earlier: Evanston Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

In addition to cash and college-sponsored scholarships, the nonprofit awards corporate-sponsored scholarships, most of which are restricted to the family of participating employers.

Last year, it named 11 members of ETHS's class of 2019 as semifinals. Four were awarded scholarships — one cash scholarship and college-sponsored scholarships to Grinnel College, Oberlin College and the University of Southern California.