Greendale High School Student Wins $2500 National Merit Scholarship

GREENDALE, WI — A student at Greendale High School was one of 2,500 students who were selected to receive a $2500 National Merit Scholarship, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced Wednesday.

About 15,000 people had been finalists for the honor, but not every student was selected. The scholarship's recipients were judged to have the strongest mixture of skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college courses, according to a news release from the NMSC.

A committee made up of high school counselors and college admissions officers judged students based on the information that was submitted by the finalists and their respective high schools. That information included academic records, the difficulty of courses, grades earned, scores from the preliminary SAT, an essay the student wrote, a recommendation from a high school official, and leadership contributions the student made in school and in the community, according to the news release.

In Greendale, Megan M. Volkening was selected to win the $2500 award. Volkening's possible future career field is engineering, the NMSC news release said.

Wednesday's announcement is the second round of winners in the 2022 National Merit program. By year's end, about 7,500 students across the country will have won $28 million in scholarships.