The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) released the names of the first group of winners in the 66th annual National Merit Scholarship Program and one Lexington-Richland School District Five student is a winner of a corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship.
Seungwook Won (Dutch Fork High) was named a winner of a corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship by Boeing.
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. Scholars were selected from students who advanced to the Finalist level in the National Merit Scholarship competition and met criteria of their scholarship sponsors.
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 their awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university of their choice.
This year’s National Merit Scholarship Program began in October 2019 when over 1.5 million juniors in more than 21,000 high schools took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. In September 2020, approximately 17,000 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.
NMSC will name recipients of National Merit® $2500 Scholarships on May 12, and winners of college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards on June 2 and 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.
