Westford Senior Wins National Merit Corporate Scholarship

WESTFORD, MA — A Westford Academy student is among roughly 1,000 seniors nationwide who've won a corporate-sponsored 2021 National Merit Scholarship award, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced Wednesday.

Around 140 corporations, company foundations, and other business organizations financed the 1,000 corporate-sponsored scholarships. Massachusetts students represented 27 of these winners in the first round of National Merit Scholarships. New Hampshire students represented three of the winners, and Rhode Island students represented one. Many corporate-sponsored awards can be used for up to four years of undergraduate education, ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 per year.

• Meghan X. Tan will receive a National Merit Schneider Electric North America Foundation Scholarship, sponsored by Schneider Electric North America Foundation, a general purpose foundation funded by Schneider Electric/Square D Company. Tan hopes to study Medicine.

About 1.5 million students entered the National Merit Scholarship competition by taking the 2019 PSAT as juniors. The 17,000 semifinalists were the highest-scoring entrants in their states, representing less than 1 percent of seniors.

Some 17,000 of the semifinalists qualified as finalists by completing a scholarship application with an essay and information about extracurricular activities, awards and leadership positions. Semifinalists also had to demonstrate an outstanding academic record, earn SAT or ACT scores confirming their PSAT performance, and get a recommendation from a high school official.
Scholarship winners were the finalists determined to "have the strongest combination of academic skills and achievements, extracurricular accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies," according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

Wednesday's announcement of 2021 scholarship winners is the first this year. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation will name recipients of $2,500 scholarships on May 12, and winners of college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards on June 2 and July 12. By the conclusion of this year's competition, about 7,500 academic champions will have won National Merit Scholarships worth approximately $30 million.