Hudson Valley Students Win Corporate-Sponsored Merit Scholarships

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced this year's corporate-sponsored National Merit $2,500 Scholarship winners on Wednesday. The designees were chosen from a talent pool of more than 15,000 outstanding Finalists in the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program. Four of them are from Westchester County.

They are among about 1,000 distinguished high school seniors won these corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship awards financed by about 200 corporations, company foundations, and other business organizations.

Scholars were selected from students who advanced to the Finalist level in the National Merit Scholarship competition and met criteria of their scholarship sponsors. Corporate sponsors provide National Merit Scholarships for Finalists who are children of their employees, who are residents of communities the company serves, or who plan to pursue college majors or careers the sponsor wishes to encourage.

Most of these awards are renewable for up to four years of college undergraduate study and provide annual stipends that range from $500 to $10,000 per year. Some provide a single payment between $2,500 and $5,000. Recipients can use their awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university.

Almost 2 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2015 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. In September 2017, some 16,000 Semifinalists were designated on a state-representational basis in numbers proportional to each state's percentage of the national total of graduating high school seniors. Semifinalists were the highest-scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than 1 percent of the nation's seniors.

In the Hudson Valley, 152 students were named Merit Semifinalists in September.

This is the first announcement of National Merit Scholars in 2018. NMSC will name recipients of National Merit® $2500 Scholarships in May, and winners of college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards in June and July. By the conclusion of this year's competition, about 7,500 academic champions will have won National Merit Scholarships worth more than $31 million.

Local students winning corporate based awards:

• John P. Duarte, Byram Hills High School (Armonk)
• Rebecca Cadenhead, Dobbs Ferry High School
• Kyle S. Christopher, Rye Country Day School
• Nora R. Murphy, Rye High School

SEE: 152 Hudson Valley Students Named Merit Semifinalists

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