Syosset Students Win College-Sponsored National Merit Scholarship

SYOSSET, NY — Two Syosset High School students have won National Merit Scholarships in the last round of winners to be announced for 2024.

Benjamin C. Hasselbring, whose probable career field is Aerospace Engineering, received a grant from Purdue.

Nicholas Yang, whose probable career field is Biochemistry, received a grant from Stony Brook.

They are among more than 800 additional winners of National Merit Scholarships financed by colleges and universities. These Merit Scholar designees join more than 2,900 other college-sponsored award recipients who were announced in June.

College-sponsored awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship.

This year, 149 colleges and universities are sponsoring approximately 3,700 Merit Scholarship awards. Sponsor colleges include 77 private and 72 public institutions located in 42 states and the District of Columbia.

Officials of each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from among the Finalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program who will attend their institution.

This is the fourth round of this year's announcements about scholarship winners. On April 24, 14 recipients of corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards were named. In May, Merit Scholars were announced. On June 5, the first round of college-sponsored Merit Scholarship winners was released.

On Long Island, the other students in this last round also included:

• Sofia Ahmed, Commack High School. Probable career field: neurosurgery. NATIONAL MERIT NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIP
• Ankur Raghavan, Bethpage High School. Probable career field: Engineering. NATIONAL MERIT PURDUE UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIP
• Edward Chen Jericho High School. Probable career field: Mechanical Engineering. NATIONAL MERIT PURDUE UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIP
• Stephanie Hsu, Jericho High School. Probable career field: Neurology. NATIONAL MERIT CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIP
• Noah Lee of Sea Cliff, North Shore High School. Probable career field: Music. NATIONAL MERIT BOSTON UNIVERSITY 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.

They were selected by a committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors, who appraised a substantial amount of information submitted by both the Finalists and their high schools: the academic record, including difficulty level of subjects studied and grades earned; scores from the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®); contributions and leadership in school and community activities; an essay written by the finalist; and a recommendation written by a high school official.