Ocean City High School Students Compete for National Merit Scholarship

Two Ocean City High School students are among 16,000 semifinalists in 61st annual National Merit Scholarship Program, officials with the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) announced this week.

Nickolas J. Eisele and Frances S. Kane are among those still in contention for about 7,400 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $32 million that will be offered next spring.

About 15,000 students, or 90 percent of the semifinalists, are expected to advance to the finals, with about half the finalists earning a scholarship.The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

To advance to the finals, Eisele and Kane, along with Ocean City High School, must submit a detailed scholarship application, in which they provide information about each student’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received.

A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.

Finalists will be announced in February.

The competition began with about 1.5 million juniors in about 22,000 high schools who took the the 2014 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. Those who scored the highest on the test advanced to the semifinals. This comes out to less than 1 percent than those who entered the contest.

Those who win scholarships will do so based on their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference.

Three types of scholarships will be awarded in the spring.

Every finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit $2,500 scholarships that will be awarded on a state-representational basis.

About 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 250 corporations and business organizations for finalists who meet their specified criteria, such as children of the grantor’s employees or residents of communities where sponsor plants or offices are located.

Additionally, about 190 colleges and universities are expected to finance about 3,900 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.

Winners will be announced between April and July of next year.

The NMSC advises that scholarships are awarded based on individual student achievement, and are not meant to be used to measure the quality or effectiveness of education within a school, system, or state.

For more information about the competition, visit www.nationalmerit.org.