Brookline High Senior Wins Second National Merit Scholarship

BROOKLINE, MA — One Brookline High School was named winners of the 2020 National Merit $2,500 Scholarship. The merit scholar winners, were among 2,500 winners nationwide and were selected from a pool of more than 15,000 finalists.

Congratulations to Brookline High's Sophia E. Nigrovic, who listed her probable career field as medicine.

Wednesday's announcement is the third group of winners to be announced this year. In April, more than 1,000 recipients of the corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship were named. Then in May there was another round of scholarships.

The Brookline High School senior is one of more than 3,000 high school seniors who became winners of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation financed by U.S. colleges and universities.

Officials of each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from among finalists in the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program who plan to attend their institution. The institution plans to award between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution. Bowdoin, is one of 167 colleges underwriting Merit Scholarship awards through the National Merit Scholarship Program, the corporation said in a release.

The National Merit Bowdoin College Scholarship: Founded in 1794 Bowdoin is one of the nation's oldest liberal arts colleges. This independent, nonsectarian, coeducational, residential college is located on a 110-acre campus in Brunswick, Maine. Approximately 70 percent of Bowdoin's alumni enter graduate or professional schools within five years of graduation.

The total number of winners in each state was proportional to the state's share of the nation's graduating high school seniors. Additional winners will be named in July. By the end of the year, about 7,600 students will have won merit scholarships totaling more than $30 million. The money can be put toward any regionally accredited college or university in America.

The merit scholarship program was created in 1955. Students in grades nine through 12 vie for academic recognition and financial support. About 1.6 million students take the qualifying test every year and about 50,000 of the highest scorers have the chance to be considered.