9 Libertyville High Seniors Named National Merit Semifinalists

LIBERTYVILLE, IL — Nine Libertyville High School seniors and seven Vernon Hills High School students were named semifinalists for 2022 National Merit scholarships on Wednesday.

The 16 local students are among 16,000 semifinalists nationwide who qualified by achieving one of the state's highest scores on the 2020 Preliminary SAT, according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

To make it to the finalist round in February, the students must submit an application with a recommendation from an official at their high school.

About 7,500 scholarships worth nearly $30 million will be awarded to finalists before the end of July 2022, according to the scholarship corporation, an Evanston-based nonprofit founded in 1955 to run the program.

Those merit scholarships include about 4,000 sponsored by colleges and universities, 2,500 sponsored by the nonprofits own funds and about 1,000 provided by corporations and business organizations.

Libertyville High School seniors picked Wednesday as National Merit Scholarship finalists include:

• Luke J. Anderson
• Owen M. Haywood
• George R. Huber
• Ryan McGrory
• Emma M. Muscato
• Molly V. Muscato
• Yelim Na
• Nikhil V. Patel
• Andrew M. Sorensen

Vernon Hills High School seniors selected as National Merit Scholarship semifinalists include:

• Anirudh Adiraju
• Ella G. Boehme
• Lora C. Dohler
• Joel K. Kim
• Jackie Liu
• Devin P. Mulcrone
• Andrew Tikhonov

Students will find out in February whether they make it to the finalist stage. The scholarship winners will be announced beginning in April.

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