Four Northfield Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

The National Merit Scholarship Program announced Wednesday that 279 students from Minnesota have been named National Merit Scholarship 2016-17 semifinalists.

Among those 279 are four Nothfield students.

Northfield High School

Alexander J. Gunn

Lars B. Ripley

Irene M. Stoutland

Christof Zweifel

To become a National Merit Finalist, these students must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, have a recommendation from their school principal, and earn SAT scores that confirm the student’s results of the PSAT.

The semifinalist and a school official must also submit a detailed scholarship application, including an essay and information about the student’s participation and leadership in school and community activities.

About 1.6 million high school juniors in over 22,000 high schools nationwide entered the 2016-17 National Merit Program by taking the 2015 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

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.

National Merit Finalists will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit $2,500 scholarships.

About 1,000 corporate-sponsored scholarships will also be given by about 230 corporations and business organizations for finalists who meet those organizations’ criteria.

And, about 190 colleges and universities are expected to finance about 4,000 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists attending their sponsoring institution.

2016-17 Merit Scholarship winners will be announced between April-July 2017.

They will join more than 323,000 other distinguished students who have earned the title of National Merit Scholar.

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