16 OPRF Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

OAK PARK, IL -- Sixteen Oak Park River Forest High School students placed as National Merit Scholarship semifinalists in the 2017 program, putting them in line for one of 7,500 scholarships.

The high school’s semifinalists are: Michael Biek, Kevin Farrell, Eric Forehand, Hannah Green, Harrison Green, Garrett Hauck, Conor Johnson, Ted Loewenthal, Beatrice Lowson, Regina Miller, Jonathan Niewijk, Curtis Reichardt, Simon Reisig, Katherine Sang, Alexander Schoeny, and Sanjeev Venkatesan.

About 1.6 million juniors from 22,000 high schools nationwide entered the 2017 program by taking the 2015 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). Of these students, 16,000, or less than 1 percent of the nation’s high school seniors, qualified as semifinalists by being among the highest-scoring entrants in each state.

The number of semifinalists in each state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

National Merit semifinalists have the opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,500 scholarships worth about $33 million, which will be awarded next spring. About 15,000 semifinalists are expected to be notified in February that they have advanced to the finalist round, from which the 2,500 winners of $2,500 National Merit Scholarships will be chosen.

About 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be given to students who meet the corporations’ specific criteria, and about 190 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 4,000 Merit Scholarship awards to finalists who will attend their institutions.

Source: OPRF