6 Newton Teens Win National Merit Scholarship

NEWTON, MA — There are a number of proud families in Newton today. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced this year’s National Merit $2,500 Scholarship winners. And the winners included six teens from Newton, chosen from a pool of more than 15,000 outstanding finalists in the 2017 National Merit Scholarship Program.

National Merit Scholarship winners are judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, according to the non profit. The number of winners named in each state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the nation’s graduating high school seniors.

Newton's winners included two Newton North students, a Newton South student, two Roxbury Latin Students who happen to live in newton and a Commonwealth School student. Sign up for the Newton newsletter to get more news like this.

The winners were selected by a committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors, who appraised a substantial amount of information submitted by both the finalists and their high schools: the academic record, including difficulty level of subjects studied and grades earned; scores from two standardized tests; contributions and leadership in school and community activities; an essay written by the Finalist; and a recommendation written by a high school official.

NEWTON NORTH

• Emily R. Moss, Probable career field: Education
• Amanda R. Powers, Probable career field: Law

NEWTON SOUTH

• James D. Rao, Probable career field: Business

ROXBURY LATIN, West Roxbury

• Sivaram S. Emani, Probable career field: Biomedical Engineering
• Felix Wang, Probable career field: Applied Mathematics

COMMONWEALTH SCHOOL, Boston

• Maya Venkatraman, Probable career field: Mechanical Engineering

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NMSC finances most of these single-payment National Merit $2500 Scholarships. Corporations and company foundations that sponsor awards through NMSC also help underwrite these scholarships with grants they provide in lieu of paying administrative fees. Scholars may use their awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university.

2017 National Merit Scholarship Competition

This year’s National Merit Scholarship Program began in October 2015 when more than 1.6 million juniors in some 22,000 high schools across the country took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. Last fall, the highest-scoring participants in each state, representing less than 1 percent of the nation’s high school seniors, were named Semifinalists on a state-representational basis. Only these 16,000 Semifinalists had an opportunity to continue in the competition.

From the Semifinalist group, some 15,000 students met the very high academic standards and other requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. By the conclusion of the 2017 program, about 7,500 Finalists will have earned the “Merit Scholar” title and received a total of over $32 million in college scholarships.

NMSC, a not-for-profit corporation that operates without government assistance, was founded in 1955 specifically for the National Merit Scholarship Program. The majority of scholarships offered each year are underwritten by approximately 420 independent corporate and college sponsors that share NMSC’s goals of honoring scholastically talented youth and encouraging academic excellence at all levels of education.

On April 19, more than 1,000 recipients of corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards were named, and on June 7 and July 17, some 4,000 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship winners will be announced. By the conclusion of this year’s competition, about 7,500 academic champions will have won National Merit Scholarships worth more than $32 million

Website: www.nationalmerit.org