3 District 202 Seniors Named National Merit Scholarship Finalists

PLAINFIELD, IL — Three Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202 students were named semifinalists in the 69th National Merit Scholarship Program, officials announced Wednesday.

The seniors are among the 16,000 semifinalists named nationwide. Of those students, 7,140 will be chosen to share nearly $28 million in scholarship money, which will be announced in spring 2024.

The finalists are Robert Childs and Bryce Roberts from Plainfield North High School and Eric Frosch from Plainfield Central High School.

According to the news release, to be considered for a scholarship award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition.

Over 1.3 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, including the highest-scoring entrants in each state, according to National Merit.

Winners will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join nearly 375,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.