Plainfield North High School seniors Robert Childs and Bryce Roberts, and Plainfield High School-Central Campus senior Eric Frosch are among more than 16,000 National Merit Scholarship 2024 semifinalists nationwide.
The trio will compete for 7,140 National Merit Scholarship awards, worth about $28 million.
The awards will be announced next spring. This is the 69th year of the prestigious program, which honors academically talented high school seniors.
About 15,000 of the 16,000 semifinalists for this school year are expected to be named Finalists in February 2024. About half of the Finalists will be named National Merit Scholars.
PHSCC Principal Chris Chlebek and PNHS Principal Ross Draper are proud of their student semifinalists.
“National Merit semifinalists are an elite group of students across the country who are dedicated to succeeding in the classroom at a high level,” Draper said.
“We are extremely proud of their efforts and how they are representing North and the entire community.”
“Eric (Frosch) possesses a deep curiosity that motivates him to continue to learn,” Chlebek said.
“He is an outstanding example of a Wildcat, and we are proud of both him and his accomplishment as a National Merit semifinalist.”
To become a National Merit Finalist, students must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by the school principal, and earn SAT scores that confirm the student’s earlier qualifying performance.
The semifinalist and a school official must also submit a detailed scholarship application, including the student’s self-descriptive essay and information about the student’s participation and leadership in school and community activities.
About 1.3 million high school juniors in over 21,000 high schools nationwide entered the 2024 National Merit Program by taking the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.
The pool of semifinalists comprises less than one percent of all United States high school seniors and includes the highest scoring entrants in each state.
National Merit Finalists will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit $2,500 scholarships.
About 160 corporations and businesses will also give about 840 corporate-sponsored scholarships to finalists who meet those organizations’ criteria.
And, about 160 colleges and universities are expected to finance about 3,800 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists attending their sponsoring institution.
The 2024 Merit Scholarship winners will be announced between April-July 2024. They will join more than 375,000 other distinguished students who have earned the title of National Merit Scholar.