Eight high school seniors from the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. have been selected as semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program, enabling them to compete for some 7,600 scholarships that will be offered in the spring.
There are seven semifinalists from Columbus North High School: Aditya Agrawal, Samantha Crossman, Tirth Desai, Mehul Dhillon, Colvin Iorio, Rohit Malik and Nela Riddle. There is one semifinalist from Columbus East: Pranav Kumarasubramanian.
According to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation’s website, about 16,000 semifinalists are named each year. Students enter the scholarship program by taking the 2018 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. The nationwide pool of semifinalists includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.
To become a finalist, each semifinalist must submit an application and meet certain requirements, including endorsement by a high school principal or official and a record of “consistently very high academic performance in all of grades nine through 12 and in any college course work taken.”
About 15,000 finalists are annually announced in February. From the pool of finalists, winners of Merit Scholarship awards or “Merit Scholars” are chosen based on their “abilities, skills and accomplishments.” Factors for evaluation include:
Academic record
Information about the school’s curriculum and grading system
PSAT/NMSQT Selection Index score
The high school official’s written recommendation
Information about the student’s activities and leadership
The finalist’s essay
From March to June, the NMSC annually notifies about 7,600 finalists that they have been chosen to receive a Merit Scholarship award. There are three types of these awards:
National Merit $2,500 scholarships: Single-payment scholarships, awarded on a state-representational basis. Winners are selected by a committee of college admission officers and high school counselors “without consideration of family financial circumstances, college choice, or major and career plans.”
Corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards: Corporate sponsors designate awards for children of their employees or members, residents of a community where the company operates or “finalists with career plans the sponsor wishes to encourage.” These may be renewable for four years of undergraduate study or one-time awards.
College-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards: Officials of each sponsor college select finalists “who have been accepted for admission and have informed NMSC by the published deadlines that the sponsor college or university is their first choice.” These awards are renewable for up to for years of undergraduate study.
