2 Stamford Students Awarded National Merit Scholarships

STAMFORD, CT — Two Stamford High School students have been awarded National Merit Scholarships, which have been financed by U.S. colleges and universities.

According to a news release, Samuel P. Lai won the Boston University National Merit Scholarship, and Rachana Somaskandan won the Northeastern University scholarship. Somaskandan's probable career field is listed in Chemical Engineering.

Overall, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced 3,100 scholarship winners on Wednesday.

Officials of each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from among the Finalists in the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program who plan to attend their institution. These awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship.

According to the news release, this year 160 higher education institutions are underwriting Merit Scholarship awards through the National Merit Scholarship Program. Sponsor colleges and universities include 85 private and 75 public institutions located in 42 states and the District of Columbia.

College-sponsored Merit Scholarship winners announced on Wednesday are a part of the distinguished group of about 7,500 high school seniors who will receive National Merit Scholarships for college undergraduate study worth nearly $30 million. Earlier this spring, NMSC announced winners of corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards and National Merit $2,500 Scholarships.

Over 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2019 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test as an initial screening process. Last fall, approximately 17,000 Semifinalists were named 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 compete for Merit Scholarship awards, Semifinalists first had to advance to the Finalist level of the competition by fulfilling additional requirements. Each Semifinalist was asked to submit 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, and be endorsed and recommended by a high school official. From the Semifinalist group, some 16,000 met requirements for Finalist standing, and about half of the Finalists will be Merit Scholarship winners in 2021.