National Merit Semifinalists From Glen Ellyn Continue in Competition for Spring Scholarships

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation has announced the names of  semifinalists in the 2014 National Merit Scholarship Program. The list is released by school, but students who attend private schools outside of Glen Ellyn are not identified by home town. Parents or guardians of students from Glen Ellyn attending private schools outside of Glen Ellyn who made the cut can let us know by emailing karenc@patch.com.

2014 National Merit Scholaship Semifinalists From Elmhurst

From Glenbard South High School

• Jennifer Lipa

From Glenbard West High School:

• Ellen Woods
• Joy Xue

These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 8,000 National Merit Scholarships worth about $35 million that will be offered next spring. About 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to advance to the finalist level, and more than half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship.

About 1.5 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2014 scholarship program by taking the 2012 preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.

To become a finalist the semifinalist and their high school must submit a detailed scholarship application with information about the semifinalist's academic record, participation in school and community activities, leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards. A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay and earn SAT scores that confirm the student's earlier performance on the qualifying test.

Three types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered in spring 2014. Every finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit $2,500 scholarships that will be awarded on a state representational basis. About 1,000 corporate-sponsored merit scholarship awards will be provided by about 240 corporations and business organizations for the 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. In addition, about 200 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 4,500 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.

National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July.