Lamoni Senior Named Semifinalist in National Merit Scholarship Program
On Wednesday, September 14, 2016 officials from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) released the names of the semifinalists for the 62nd annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Lamoni Community Schools is pleased to announce that Senior Jennifer Eason was named one of the 16,000 semifinalists from across the country. According to the press release, “to be considered for the Merit Scholarship® award Semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. About 90 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and about half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title.”
To become a Semifinalist in the National Merit Scholarship Program juniors took the 2015 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®). Roughly 1.6 million juniors took these screening programs with only 16,000 moving on to Semifinalist status. These 16,000 represent less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, including the highest-scoring entrants in each state, according to the NMSC press release. From the 16,000 Semifinalists, around 15,000 will move on to the Finalist round where they can compete for one of 2,500 National Merit® $2500 Scholarships, about 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards, as well as 4,000 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards funded by 190 colleges and universities.
If Semifinalists make it to the Finalist round, they will be notified of the designation in February. After this, the National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced in four nationwide new releases starting in April and ending in July.
Lamoni Community Schools would like to congratulate Jennifer Eason on this distinguished honor and wish her luck in the future rounds of the National Merit Scholarship competition.
For more information about the competition or organization please visit www.nationalmerit.org. The full press release can be read at the following website: http://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/images/gid2/editor_documents/17_meritsemi.pdf.