National Merit Scholar From Mendota Heights Announced

MENDOTA HEIGHTS, MN — The next group of 2021 National Merit Scholarship winners include one high school student from Mendota Heights.

The National Merit winner from Mendota Heights is among the more than 7,500 announced nationally this year to receive between $500 and $2,000 scholarships from colleges and universities across the country, the National Merit Scholarship Corp. said in a news release Monday.

National Merit Scholarship winner of this round of scholarships from Mendota Heights in 2021 is:

• Noelle T. Wang of Covenant of the Visitation School, attending Carleton College. Probable career field: Writing

The National Merit winners announced this week will have their scholarships funded by the colleges and universities that they will attend. One hundred and sixty colleges and universities — including 85 private and 75 public schools — took part in the merit scholarship program in 2021.

This group of winners is part of the approximately 7,500 National Merit scholarship winners who will be selected by the end of 2021. National Merit scholarships via corporate-sponsored awards and the corporation's own $2,500 scholarships were announced earlier in the spring.

More than 1.5 million juniors nationally entered the 2021 National Merit scholarship program when they took the 2019 preliminary SAT/National Merit scholarship qualifying test, the corporation said. About 17,000 semifinalists, fewer than 1 percent of the country's high school seniors, were announced last fall.

Semifinalists had to write an essay and detail their extracurricular activities, awards and leadership positions to become a finalist. About half of the 16,000 finalists became scholarship winners, the corporation said.