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Jacob Janzen of Jamestown, a student at Jamestown High School, has been named a corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship winner.
Janzen has been awarded the National Merit BNSF Railway Foundation Scholarship.
National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) released the names of the first group of winners in the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.
Approximately 770 high school seniors have won corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship awards financed by about 94 corporations, company foundations and other business organizations.
Scholars were selected from students who advanced to the Finalist level in the National Merit Scholarship competition and met criteria of their scholarship sponsors. Corporate sponsors provide National Merit Scholarships for Finalists who are children of their employees, are residents of communities the company serves, or plan to pursue college majors or careers the sponsor wishes to encourage.
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Recipients can use their awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university of their choice.
High school juniors entered the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. In September 2023, more than 16,000 Semifinalists were designated on a state-representational basis in numbers proportional to each state’s percentage of the national total of graduating high school seniors. Semifinalists were
the highest-scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than 1% of the seniors.
To be considered for a National Merit Scholarship, Semifinalists had to fulfill requirements to advance to Finalist standing. Each Semifinalist completed a detailed scholarship application, including writing an essay and providing information about extracurricular activities, awards and leadership positions. Semifinalists also had to have an outstanding academic record, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirmed their qualifying test performance.
By the conclusion of the 2024 competition, more than 6,870 Finalists will have been selected to receive National Merit Scholarships totaling nearly $26 million. Winners are the Finalist candidates judged to have the strongest combination of academic skills and achievements, extracurricular accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies.
NMSC, a not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance, was established in 1955 to conduct the National Merit Scholarship Program.
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