Plainfield Student Awarded National Merit Scholarship

PLAINFIELD, IL — A recent Plainfield High School - Central Campus was named a National Merit Scholar Monday among the final group of winners announced this year, according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Winners of the college-sponsored awards receive annual payments of between $500 and $2,000 for up to four years of undergraduate study at the sponsoring institution.

Frank D. Ruane, of Plainfield, was awarded a scholarship to study at Purdue University. He plans to pursue a degree in engineer, according to National Merit.

More than 4,000 such grants have been awarded this year by 178 colleges and universities, including 78 public schools and 100 private in 44 states and the District of Columbia.

In June, another District 202 student, Plainfield North graduate Isaac Schennum, was awarded a National Merit Scholarship sponsored by Iowa State University.

The winners were selected by officials from each sponsoring college from finalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program who will be attending the school. Finalists are selected from 16,000 semifinalists picked from the 1.6 million juniors who took the 2016 Preliminary SAT test.

They represent less than 1 percent of the seniors in the country, and the number of semifinalists in each state was proportional to its share of the total number of graduating seniors nationwide.

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Photo of Frank Ruane via District 202