Wang
Three local students have been named National Merit Scholars.
Columbus North seniors Chaewon Lee, Matthew Liu and Jiaxuan Wang have each been awarded a $2,500 scholarship from the National Merit Scholarship Corp. The three students are among 2,500 winners chosen from a pool of more than 15,000 finalists.
Indiana students received 50 of the $2,500 single-payment scholarships. Most of these were financed by the National Merit Scholarship Corp., with two underwritten by the State Farm Companies Foundation. Scholars may use their awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university.
The 2022 National Merit Scholarship Competition began when high school juniors took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test in October of 2020. This past fall, the highest-scoring participants in each state — representing less than one percent of the nation’s high school seniors — were named semifinalists on a state-representational basis. More than 16,000 semifinalists had the opportunity to continue in the competition.
From this group, more than 15,000 students met the academic standards and other requirements to advance to finalist level.
This includes approximately 1,000 recipients of corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards (which were announced in April) some 4,000 winners of college-sponsored awards (which will be announced this summer) and the National Merit $2,500 scholarship winners.
The latter group — which includes Lee, Liu and Wang — was selected by a committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors. These judges reviewed information submitted by the finalists and their high schools, including academic records, scores from the PSAT/NMSQT, school and community involvement, an essay written by the finalist, and a recommendation from a school official.
Liu, Lee and Wang are among Columbus North’s top 10 students for 2022, placing first, third and fifth respectively. Liu plans to go to Yale University or Brown University and study pre-med chemistry. Lee and Wang both plan to study computer science at Purdue University.
