Santa Rosa Resident Awarded National Merit Scholarship

SANTA ROSA, CA — A Santa Rosa resident has been named a National Merit Scholar and will receive a scholarship for their college undergraduate study.

National Merit Scholar Schuyler Jones, who attends Stevenson School Pebble Beach, was among a group of 3,100 winners announced Wednesday. The scholars will be awarded between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing their scholarship, a press statement said.

Jones plans to study environmental science at the University of South Florida.

"The University of South Florida has four campuses, in Tampa (main campus), St. Petersburg, Sarasota, and Lakeland. The university enrolls over 41,000 students in bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D. programs of the College and Schools of Arts & Sciences, Architecture, Business, Education, Engineering, Health Sciences, Honors, Marine Science, Medicine, Nursing, Public Health, and Visual & Performing Arts and Pre-Medical preparations. Honors students enjoy unique undergraduate research opportunities," the National Merit Scholarship Corporation said.

The National Merit winners announced this week will have their scholarships funded by the colleges and universities that they will attend. One hundred and sixty colleges and universities — including 85 private and 75 public schools — took part in the merit scholarship program in 2021.

An additional group of college-sponsored National Merit scholars will be announced in July, the scholarship corporation said. This group is part of the approximately 7,500 National Merit scholarship winners who will be selected by the end of 2021. National Merit scholarships via corporate-sponsored awards and the corporation's own $2,500 scholarships were announced earlier in the spring.

More than 1.5 million juniors nationally entered the 2021 National Merit scholarship program when they took the 2019 preliminary SAT/National Merit scholarship qualifying test, the corporation said. About 17,000 semifinalists, fewer than 1 percent of the country's high school seniors, were announced last fall.

Semifinalists had to write an essay and detail their extracurricular activities, awards and leadership positions to become a finalist. About half of the 16,000 finalists will be merit scholars by the end of the year, the corporation said.

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— Patch local editor Gideon Rubin contributed to this report.