Several District 207 students honored by National Merit Scholarship Program
Several Maine Township District 207 12th graders have earned recognition from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Students from all three schools earned Semifinalist and Commended status. Students achieved their status based on their performance on the PSAT taken in 11th grade.
The Semifinalists include:
• Luke Compton, Domenic Conversa, Katie Foley and Kai Trivedi from Maine South
• Lawson Wetendorf from Maine West
The Commended students include:
• Irene Do, Tahreem Sayed and Nina Volpe from Maine East
• Kaia Bechtold, Audrey Becker, Elle Cho, Sam Farquhar, Christian Hamielec, Alex Jerome, Seehyun Larson, Nick Moigradan, Krislinda Silo, Michael Tuebo and Brian Weiss from Maine South
Each year, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation uses the PSAT scores of some 1.3 million program entrants to determine recognition. The top 50,000 scores are used for semifinalist and commended status. Of those entrants, less than 1% (only the top 16,000 of the high scorers) qualify as semifinalists with the opportunity to advance to Merit Scholarship awards. The remaining 34,000 qualify for Commended status.
Semifinalists can advance to the finalist level of the competition and earn one of three types of scholarships:
One of 2,500 National Merit $2,500 Scholarships. Winners of this scholarship receive a single payment of $2,500 that is awarded on a state-representational basis. A corporate-sponsored scholarship.
About 830 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 150 corporations and business organizations for Finalists who meet their specified criteria, such as children of the grantor’s employees or residents of communities where sponsor plants or offices are located.
A college-sponsored merit scholarship. About 150 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 3,600 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.
All Merit Scholar designees are chosen based on their abilities, accomplishments and potential for success in rigorous college studies without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin or religious preference.