Cy-Woods and Langham Creek seniors win National Merit Scholarships
Two CFISD seniors were among 840 students across the state named in the first group of winners in the 68th annual National Merit Scholarship program. The corporate-sponsored awards were financed by 107 corporations, company foundations and other business organizations.
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Cypress Woods High School senior Andre Zhang earned the National Merit Emerson Electric Co. Scholarship. The award recognizes outstanding children of Emerson employees. Zhang plans to study computer science at the University of Texas at Austin. |
Cypress Woods High School senior Andre Zhang earned the National Merit Emerson Electric Co. Scholarship. The award recognizes outstanding children of Emerson employees. Zhang plans to study computer science at the University of Texas at Austin.
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Langham Creek High School senior Nitya Kodali earned the National Merit Schneider Electric North America Foundation Scholarship. The award recognizes children of Schneider Electric/Square D employees and employees of its wholly-owned subsidiaries. Kodali plans to study healthcare at Vanderbilt University. |
Langham Creek High School senior Nitya Kodali earned the National Merit Schneider Electric North America Foundation Scholarship. The award recognizes children of Schneider Electric/Square D employees and employees of its wholly-owned subsidiaries. Kodali plans to study healthcare at Vanderbilt University.
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 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. Funding for these National Merit Scholarships is provided by corporate organizations that represent nearly all sectors of American industry.
High school juniors entered the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2021 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. In September 2022, more than 16,000 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.
To be considered for a National Merit Scholarship, Semifinalists had to fulfill requirements to advance to finalist standing. Each semifinalist was asked to complete 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 their qualifying test performance. From the semifinalist group, over 15,000 met finalist requirements.
By the conclusion of the 2023 competition, more than 7,140 finalists will have been selected to receive National Merit scholarships totaling nearly $28 million.
