Libertyville High Senior Earns National Merit Scholarship

LIBERTYVILLE, IL — A Libertyville high school student was among a group of 750 high school seniors recently announced as National Merit scholarship winners. The scholarships are financed by U.S. colleges and universities.

Libertyville High School's Chase R. Houser was among those picked to receive a National Merit Scholarship. Houser, of Libertyville, will be attending Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, and plans to pursue a career in computer science, according to the National Merit Scholarship press release.

Winners had to first take the 2021 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship qualifying test as junior and then complete a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay, describing leadership positions and contributions in school and community activities, showing an outstanding academic record and being endorsed and recommended by a high school official. Semifinalists then took the SAT or ACT and needed to earn scores that confirmed their performance on the initial qualifying test, according to a news release.

The recent winners join a group of more than 3,000 other high school seniors who learned they'd been picked as National Merit scholars in June.

The college-sponsored awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship, according to the news release. This year, 153 colleges and universities are sponsoring over 3,800 merit scholarship awards. Sponsor colleges include 81 private and 72 public institutions located in 42 states and the

This final group of winners brings the number of 2023 National Merit Scholars to more
than 7,140. These distinguished high school graduates will receive scholarships for undergraduate
study worth a total of nearly $28 million.

In addition to college-sponsored awards, two other types of National Merit scholarships were offered—2,500 National Merit $2500 scholarships, for which all finalists competed, and about 840 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for finalists who met criteria specified by their grantor organizations, according to the news release.