Six HV Students Win Corporate-Sponsored National Merit Awards

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — Six high-schoolers in the Hudson Valley have earned a corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship. They are among 770 high school seniors around the United States to earn the honor.

This is the first group of winners to be announced in the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. The corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship awards are financed by about 94 corporations, company foundations, and other business organizations that represent nearly all sectors of American industry.

Sponsors from the business community have underwritten awards offered in all 69 competitions, expending or committing more than $870 million to support the intellectual development of the nation’s scholastically talented youth.

Corporate sponsors provide National Merit Scholarships for finalists who are children of their employees, residents of the communities the company serves or who plan to pursue college majors or careers the sponsor wishes to encourage.

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

Scholars were selected from students who advanced to the Finalist level in the National Merit Scholarship competition and met criteria of their scholarship sponsors.

Here are the Hudson Valley students who received corporate awards:

• Neel G. Roy, Horace Greeley High School, Chappaqua. Probable career field: Bioinformatics. NATIONAL MERIT NEW YORK LIFE FAMILY SCHOLARSHIP
• Thomas Y. Cong, Ossining High School. Probable career field: Academia. NATIONAL MERIT BATTELLE SCHOLARSHIP
• Bernardo Peschard Rioboo, French American School of New York, Mamaroneck. Probable career field: Engineering. NATIONAL MERIT PEPSICO FOUNDATION SCHOLARSHIP
• Laila S. Alam, Rhinebeck Central School. Probable career field: Business Administration. NATIONAL MERIT ADP HENRY TAUB MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP
• Fiona Chen, Blind Brook High School, Rye Brook. Probable career field: Neurology. NATIONAL MERIT PUBLIC SERVICE ENTERPRISE GROUP SCHOLARSHIP
• Fiona Stern, Edgemont High School, Scarsdale. Probable career field: Computer Science. NATIONAL MERIT MARSH MCLENNAN SCHOLARSHIP

High school juniors entered the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

In September 2023, more than 16,000 Semifinalists were designated on a state-representational basis in numbers proportional to each state’s percentage of the national total of graduating high school seniors. Semifinalists were the highest-scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than one percent of the nation’s seniors.

To be considered for a National Merit Scholarship, Semifinalists had to fulfill requirements to advance to Finalist standing. 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. From the Semifinalist group, over 15,000 met Finalist requirements.

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. Winners are the Finalist candidates judged to have the strongest combination of academic skills and achievements, extracurricular accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies.