Hillsborough High School senior Vinay A. Ravinder has been awarded a $2,500 National Merit Scholarship.
Vinay, whose probable field is engineering, will have his grant supported by National Merit Scholarship Corporation’s own funds.
He was one of the 2,500 Merit Scholar designees were chosen from a talent pool of more than 15,000 finalists in the 2016 National Merit Scholarship program competition.
The number of winners named in each state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the nation’s graduating high school seniors.
The National Merit Corporation finances most of these single-payment $2,500 scholarships.Corporations and company foundations that sponsor awards through NMSC also help underwrite these scholarships with grants they provide in lieu of paying administrative fees.
Scholars may use their awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university.
Earlier this year, Kyle J. Hurley of Hillsborough was one of more than 1,000 high school seniors nationwide selected for a National Merit scholarship sponsored by about 200 corporations, company foundations and other business organizations.
Kyle’s probable career field is finance. His scholarship is financed by the health care company Johnson & Johnson for children of management and administration employees based at its world headquarters in Skillman.
Most awards are renewable for up to four years of undergraduate study and provide stipends that range from $500 to $10,000 per year. Some provide a single payment between $2,500 and $5,000. Recipients can use their awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university of their choice.
This year’s competition for National Merit Scholarships began in October 2014 when more than1.5 million juniors in some 22,000 high schools took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of entrants.
Last fall, the highest-scoring participants in each state, representing less than one percent of the nation’s high school seniors, were named semifinalists on a state-representational basis. Only these 16,000 semifinalists had an opportunity to continue in the competition.
From the group, 15,000 students met the academic standards and other requirements to advance to the finalist level. By the conclusion of the 2016 program, about 7,500 finalists will have earned the “Merit Scholar” title and received a total of about $33 million in college scholarships.
NMSC, a not-for-profit corporation that operates without government assistance, was founded specifically to conduct the scholarship program.
