3 New Berlin Students Awarded National Merit Scholarships

NEW BERLIN, WI — Three New Berlin students have been announced as National Merit Scholars and will receive scholarships for their college undergraduate study.

The National Merit Scholars from New Berlin are among a group of 3,100 winners announced Wednesday. They 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.

Here are New Berlin's National Merit Scholars:

• Clara Fuller, Heritage Christian School, Michigan State University. Probable field of study: Music
• Kyra Levandoski, Eisenhower High School, Bradley University. Probable field of study: Genetics.
• Eric J. Oelschlager, Eisenhower High School, University of Wisconsin - Madison. Probable field of study: Industrial Engineering.

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.

47 Wisconsin students were announced National Merit Scholars in May.

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.