National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) has released the names of the first group of winners in the 65th National Merit Scholarship Program. Approximately 1,000 distinguished high school seniors have won corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship awards financed by about 160 corporations, company foundations and other business organizations.
Corporate-sponsored scholarship winners from Garland ISD
Bailey A. Hogan – Sachse High School
Alicia S. Sebastian – Garland High School
Scholars were selected from students who advanced to the finalist level in the NMSC 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 $1,000 to $10,000 per year. Some provide a single payment between $2,500 and $5,000. Recipients can use the awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university.
This is the first announcement of National Merit Scholars in 2020 by NMSC. The corporation will name recipients of National Merit® $2500 Scholarships May 13 and winners of college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards June 3 and July 13. By the conclusion of this year’s competition, about 7,600 academic champions will have won scholarships worth more than $30 million.
Funding for these scholarships is provided by corporate organizations that represent nearly all sectors of American industry. Sponsors from the business community have underwritten awards offered in all 65 competitions, expending or committing approximately $820 million to support the intellectual development of the nation’s scholastically talented youth.
Over 1.5 million juniors in approximately 21,000 high schools entered the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2018 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. In September 2019, 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 one percent of the nation’s seniors.
To be considered for a National Merit Scholarship, semifinalists had to fulfill requirements to advance to finalist standing. Each semifinalist was asked to complete 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 their qualifying test performance. From the semifinalist group, some 15,000 met finalist requirements.