East Lyme High Schools Seniors Selected As National Merit Winners

EAST LYME, CT — The National Merit Scholarship Corporation released the names of the first group of winners in the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Three East Lyme High School seniors are among the winners.

All three won the National Merit Pfizer, Inc. scholarship. Here are the winning students and their probable career fields:

• Sidhaarth Bulusu, medicine
• Mingwen Wayne Duan, education (college professor)
• Jiarui Peng, engineering

About 770 high school seniors have won the awards, which are financed by about 94 corporations, company foundations, and other businesses.

Most of these awards are renewable for up to four years of college undergraduate study and provide annual stipends that range from $1,000 to $10,000. Some provide a single payment between $2,500 and $5,000. Recipients can use their awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university of their choice.

High school juniors entered the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2022 PSATS, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. Semifinalists were the highest-scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than one percent of the nation’s seniors.

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.

By the conclusion of the 2024 competition, more than 6,870 finalists will have been selected to receive National Merit Scholarships totaling nearly $26 million.