2 Darien Students Win College-Sponsored Merit Scholarships

Darien CT

03 June, 2022

4:02 PM

Description

DARIEN, CT — The National Merit Scholarship Corporation recently announced the winners of the National Merit Scholarships financed by U.S. colleges and universities. Andrew Lin and Lucas J. Smith, both students from Darien High School, are among the over 2,600 scholarship winners. Lin was awarded the scholarship from Tufts University; Smith was awarded the scholarship from Case Western Reserve University. Officials of each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from finalists in the 2022 National Merit Scholarship Program who plan to attend their institution. These awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship. An additional group of scholars will be announced in July, bringing the total number of college-sponsored Merit Scholarship recipients in the 2022 competition to about 4,000. Last fall, more than 16,000 semifinalists were named 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. To compete for Merit Scholarship awards, semifinalists first had to advance to the finalist level of the competition by fulfilling additional requirements. Each semifinalist was asked to submit a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay and providing information about extracurricular activities, awards and leadership positions. Semifinalists also had to have an outstanding academic record, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirmed the qualifying test performance. From the semifinalist group, over 15,000 met requirements for finalist standing, and about half of the finalists will be Merit Scholarship winners in 2022.