Vernon Hills Students Receive National Merit Scholarships

VERNON HILLS, IL – The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced its first round of 2019 scholarship winners Wednesday. Several local students were among 1,000 high school seniors to be picked for corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship awards, which are financed by dozens of corporations, company foundations and other business organizations, according to a news release. Additional National Merit scholarship winners will be announced in coming months.

The prizes for the corporate-sponsored winners range from annual stipends between $500 and $10,000 per year while some awards are single payment payouts that range from $2,500 to $5,000, according to the news release.

The winners were selected from a group of finalists and met criteria provided by their scholarship sponsors. Such criteria could include whether the students are children of an employee at the company, are residents of communities the company serves, or who plan to pursue college majors or careers the sponsor wishes to encourage.

The following local students received National Merit Scholarships:

• Claire Wu Huang of Vernon Hills. She attends Adlai Stevenson High School and her probable career field is finance. She received a National Merit Ametek Scholarship.
• Varun Malladi of Vernon Hills. Malladi attends Stevenson High School and is planning to pursue a career in applied mathematics. Malladi received a National Merit Abbvie Scholarship.
• Valerie D. Smykalov of Vernon Hills. She attends Vernon Hills High School and her probable career field is environmental policy. She received a National Merit CDK Global, LLC Scholarship.
• Tony X. Tan of Vernon Hills. Tan attends Stevenson High School and has a probable career field in computer science. Tan received a National Merit AbbVie Inc. Scholarship.
• Jeffrey Zhang of Vernon Hills. He attends Vernon Hills High School and his probably career field is computer science. He received a National Merit AbbVie Inc. Scholarship.

The National Merit Scholarship Foundation will announce $2,500 award winners on May 8 and winners of its college-sponsored awards on June 5 and July 15. In total, 7,600 students from across the U.S. will receive $31 million worth of National Merit Scholarship awards this year.

More via the National Merit Scholarship Corporation website