2 Rhode Island High School Students Win National Merit Scholarships

WESTERLY, RI — Two students from Rhode Island were chosen as winners of the corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship awards, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) announced Wednesday.

The winners were Harry Feng, a senior at the Wheeler School in Pawtucket and Alana Healey, of Westerly, who will graduate from Chariho Regional High School in Richmond this spring.

Feng's scholarship was sponsored by the Research Triangle Institute and will benefit Feng, as he pursues a carer in software engineering. Healey's scholarship, which was sponsored by Pfizer, will help her study biology.

Some corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship awards provide a single payment between $2,500 and $5,000, the NMSC said.
Recipients can use their awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university of their choice.

According to the NMSC, approximately 840 high school seniors earned corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship awards this year, which were financed by about 107 corporations, company foundations and other business organizations.

The current recipients of these grants entered the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program as high school juniors when they took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test in 2021.

This past September, 16,000 semifinalists were selected based on their scores on the qualifying test.

In order to advance to the finalist stage, each semifinalist had 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.
The NMSC said that over 15,000 students were selected as finalists. From that pool, more than 7,140 students will be chosen to receive National Merit Scholarships totaling nearly $28 million, according to the NMSC.

The corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship award recipients announced on Wednesday represented just the first group of National Merit Scholarship winners.

On May 10, the NMSC will name the recipients of the National Merit $2,500 Scholarships. On July 7 and July 10, the winners of the college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be announced.