Downingtown STEM Student Wins National Merit Corporate Scholarship

DOWNINGTOWN, PA — A Downingtown STEM student has been honored with the rare distinction of the National Merit Corporate scholarship, placing her among the elite high school scholars in the nation.

Maryann Nazareth, a Chester Springs resident who plans to study medicine, won the National Merit Cencora Scholarship.

The awards range from $500 to $10,000 per year for up to four years of undergraduate study.

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

Around 770 students were selected as corporate-sponsored National Merit winners nationwide, including 33 in Pennsylvania.

Just like winners of the general National Merit scholarship, corporate winners were chosen from a pool of around 1.6 million high school juniors who automatically entered into the competition by taking the PSAT in 2017. Around 16,000 semifinalists were chosen from that group in 2018 based on high scores. Semifinalists then had to complete a detailed scholarship application, including an essay, information on leadership and extracurricular activities, and more.

Around 7,600 students will be selected as finalists of some kind in 2019, organizers said, either for a corporate or non-corporate scholarship.