3 Shaker Heights Students Get National Merit Scholarships

SHAKER HEIGHTS, OH — Three Shaker Heights High School students are among 3,200 recipients of 2017 National Merit Scholarships. The students received scholarships from universities they plan on attending in the fall.

All winners were selected from a pool of finalists in the 2017 National Merit Scholarship Program. Each student plans to attend the university sponsoring their scholarship. The awards range between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study.

The initial pool of applicants for the scholarships included a staggering 1.6 million students, all of who took the PSAT in 2015. These students scored highly on that exam and then continued to excel throughout the application process.

The three students from Shaker are Edith Duncan, Andrew Maytin, and Nora Spadoni. All three attend Shaker Heights High School.

Duncan will attend Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee, and pursue a career in medicine.

Maytin will stay local and attend Case Western Reserve. He will pursue a career in engineering.

Spadoni plans to attend the University of Chicago and pursue the study of biology.

The students had heavy competition for National Merit Scholarships. Some 1.6 million high school juniors nationwide entered the competition when they took part in the 2015 PSAT test.

A selection committee whittled down the entrants until 16,000 semifinalists had been announced. Semifinalists were then asked to submit a detailed scholarship application, which included an essay and information on their extracurricular activities, awards, and leadership positions. The students also had to be endorsed by a high school official and earn SAT high SAT scores. About 15,000 students met the finalist requirements.

Photo from Shaker Heights Schools