National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) recently announced over 3,100 winners of National Merit Scholarships financed by U.S. colleges and universities.
Four of the scholarship winners are from Garland:
- Jeremiah M. Abraham – North Garland High School
- Alvin Dave Bagaoisan – Garland High School
- Alexander J. Boyd – Plano East High School
- Gia-Uyen L. Tran – Garland High School
Officials of each sponsor college selected their winners from among the Finalists in the 2021 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. An additional group of Scholars will be announced in July, bringing the total number of college-sponsored Merit Scholarship recipients in the 2021 competition to about 4,000.
This year, 160 higher education institutions are underwriting Merit Scholarship awards through the National Merit Scholarship Program. Sponsor colleges and universities include 85 private and 75 public institutions located in 42 states and the District of Columbia.
Today’s announcement is the third National Merit Scholar release in 2021 by National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC®). NMSC named recipients of corporate-sponsored awards April 21 and winners of National Merit ® $2500 Scholarships May 12. Additional recipients of college-sponsored awards will be announced July 12. By the conclusion of this year’s competition, about 7,500 academic champions will have won National Merit Scholarships worth approximately $30 million.
College-sponsored Merit Scholarship winners announced today are a part of the distinguished group of about 7,500 high school seniors who will receive National Merit Scholarships for college undergraduate study worth nearly $30 million. Earlier this spring, NMSC announced winners of corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards and National Merit $2500 Scholarships.
Over 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2019 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship
Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. Last fall, approximately 17,000 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 1% 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, and be endorsed and recommended by a high school official. From the Semifinalist group, some 16,000 met requirements for Finalist standing, and about half of the Finalists will be Merit Scholarship winners in 2021.