2 District 127 Seniors Named National Merit Scholarship Finalists

Two Grayslake District 127 seniors are among 15,000 students nationally to be named as finalists in the National Merit Scholarship program.

Victoria Liu from Grayslake Central and Sivani Gullapalli from Grayslake North are the honored recipients.

More than 1.5 million students of the class of 2016 entered the National Merit Program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

The District 127 seniors were named semi-finalists in September and have met all the requirements to advance to finalist standing in the competition for Merit Scholarship awards, which will be announced later this spring.

The students were selected as finalists based on their Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test scores and other factors, including ACT/SAT scores, a student essay, a school recommendation and having an outstanding academic record throughout high school.

The finalists represent less than 1 percent of the nation’s high school seniors and compete for approximately 8,000 National Merit Scholarships worth around $35 million to be offered this spring. The NMSC is a privately financed, nonprofit corporation.