Libertyville Student Earns National Merit Scholarship

LIBERTYVILLE, VERNON HILLS, IL — The latest group of 2021 National Merit Scholarship winners includes a Libertyville High School student.

Leah G. Kline of Libertyville is among the more than 3,100 announced nationally this year to receive between $500 and $2,000 scholarships from colleges and universities across the country, the National Merit Scholarship Corp. said in a news release Wednesday.

Kline plans to pursue a career in education at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.

In addition, three Vernon Hills High School students earned a national merit scholarship, including:

• Bradley R. Auw of Vernon Hills. He plans to study aerospace engineering at Purdue University.
• Lisa A. Boehmer of Vernon Hills. She plans to study chemical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.
• Ashley M. Ziegler of Vernon Hills. She plans to study computer science at Indian University - Bloomington.

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.

Link to Local Article on Previous National Scholarship Winners in your state or town.

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.