Grayslake Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

GRAYSLAKE, IL — Three local students were named semifinalists in the 69th National Merit Scholarship Program Wednesday.

The high school seniors were among 16,000 named nationwide. Of those students, 7,140 will be chosen to share nearly $28 million in scholarship money, which will be announced in spring 2024.

The local Grayslake students include:

GRAYSLAKE CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL

• Mihir Tandon

GRAYSLAKE NORTH HIGH SCHOOL

• Eugene Kang
• Aidan Kim

According to the news release, to be considered for a scholarship award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition.

Over 1.3 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

The nationwide pool of semifinalists represent less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, including the highest-scoring entrants in each state, according to National Merit.

Winners will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join nearly 375,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.