4 Bryn Mawr-Area Seniors Win College-Sponsored Scholarships

BRYN MAWR, PA — Four Bryn Mawr-area high school seniors were recently named winners of National Merit Scholarships financed by U.S. colleges and universities.

These four are among more than 3,300 winners nationwide.

Below are details on the Bryn Mawr-area's winners:

Ryan Cohen, Villanova — Harriton High School, Rosemont

• Probable career field: Mathematics
• National Merit Pennsylvania State University Scholarship
  • Penn State offers a breadth of academic programs as diverse as the interests of its nearly 80,000 undergraduate and graduate students university-wide. Students can start as freshmen at 20 of 24 campuses statewide, and choose from more than 180 Baccalaureate and Associate degree programs.

Sara Takenaka Bryn Mawr — Radnor High School, Radnor

• Probable career field: Chemical Engineering
• National Merit Tufts University Scholarship
  • Tufts University, located 6 miles from Boston, offers the personal attention of a small college and the options of a complex university. Among the options available to the 4,400 undergraduates in liberal arts and engineering are self-designed majors, the experimental college, independent study, an honors program, double-degree programs, internships, study abroad, a semester in Washington, and ROTC. Over 150 clubs, organizations and sports reinforce the balance at Tufts.

Emily Wright, Bala Cynwyd — Harriton High School, Rosemont

• Probable career field: Biochemistry
• National Merit Boston University Scholarship
  • Boston University is a non-sectarian, privately endowed, coeducational institution. It has an undergraduate enrollment of over 15,000. It offers undergraduate degrees in Arts and Sciences, Education, Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Hospitality Administration, Engineering, Theater, Music, Visual Arts, Communication, Management, and University Professors.

Aiden N. Bailey, Norristown — The Shipley School, Bryn Mawr

• Probable career field: Mathematics
• National Merit University Of Chicago Scholarship
  • The University of Chicago is small, private, coeducational, and residential; it has an international reputation for distinction. The college (3,425 undergraduate students) offers liberal arts training in over 60 areas; 3,100 students are enrolled in 4 graduate divisions and about 3,000 in 7 graduate professional schools. Since 1892, Chicago has drawn gifted students from around the world to its beautiful 165-acre campus and has offered unexcelled teaching and extensive library and research facilities.

Officials of each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from among the finalists in the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program who plan to attend their institution.

These awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship.

Sponsor colleges and universities include 92 private and 75 public institutions located in 43 states and the District of Columbia.

Additional recipients of college-sponsored awards will be announced on July 13.

By the conclusion of this year’s competition, about 7,600 academic champions will have won National Merit Scholarships worth more than $30 million.

College-sponsored Merit Scholarship winners announced today are a part of the distinguished group of about 7,600 high school seniors who will receive National Merit Scholarships for college undergraduate study worth over $30 million.

More than 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2018 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

Last fall, approximately 16,000 Semifinalists were named 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 one percent of the nation’s seniors.

To compete for Merit Scholarship awards, semifinalists first had to advance to the
Finalist level of the competition by fulfilling additional requirements.

Each semifinalist was asked to submit a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay and providing information about extracurricular activities, awards, and leadership positions. Semifinalists also had to have an outstanding academic record, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirmed the qualifying test performance.

From the semifinalist group, some 15,000 met requirements for finalist standing, and about half of the finalists will be Merit Scholarship winners in 2020.