3 Oswego East High Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

OSWEGO, IL — Three seniors at Oswego East High School are among about 16,000 named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists nationwide, district officials announced.

Arjun Ramesh, Nicholas Rondon and Aanya Roy will compete for about 7,250 National Merit Scholarship awards that are worth about $28 million. The pool of semifinalists comprises less than one percent of all United States High School seniors and includes the highest scoring entrants in each state.

Oswego Community Unit School District 308 officials said about 15,000 of the 16,000 semifinalists are expected to be named finalists in the spring.

Three types of scholarships are offered. Each finalists will compete for 2,500 National Merit $2,500 scholarships. Additionally, about 180 corporations and businesses will give about 950 corporate-sponsored scholarships to finalists who meet their criteria. About 160 colleges and universities are expected to finance Merit Scholarship awards for finalists attending their sponsoring institution.

Winners of the 2023 National Merit Scholarship program will be announced between April and July 2023.

In its 68th year, the program honors academically talented high school seniors.

To become a finalist, students must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by the school principal and earn SAT scores that confirm the student's earlier qualifying performance.

The semifinalist and a school official were also required to submit a detailed scholarship application that included the student's self-descriptive essay as well as information about the student's participation and leadership in school and community activities.

Juniors from high school nationwide entered the 2023 National Merit Program by taking the 2021 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.