Baldwin is proud to announce that 17 students from its senior class have been recognized by the National Merit® Scholarship Program. In the 68th annual National Merit® Scholarship Program, eight Baldwin students have been named Semifinalists, seven students have been named Commended Students, one student was honored with a National Hispanic Recognition Award and one was honored with a National African American Recognition Award.

 

Julie Brose, Christina Cai, Batya Kaplan, Eugenia Li, Yuru Lin, Zibei (Betti) Pang, Makenna Walko and Wanying (Emily) Zhang have been recognized as Semifinalists for their outstanding performance on the 2021 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®). Of the nearly 1.5 million high school juniors who entered the program, these eight Baldwin students were among 16,000 seniors who qualified for recognition as Semifinalists.

 

In addition to Baldwin’s Semifinalists, Wynne Conger, Sahsa Deringer, Rachel Gopalani, Eri Maeda, Sophia Ran, Lydia Snyder and Sijia (Scarlet) Xing have been named National Merit Commended Students and Aleida Skogland was honored with a National Hispanic Recognition Award and Ryan Shelton was honored with a National African American Recognition Award.

 

From the approximately 16,000 Semifinalists, about 15,000 are expected to advance to the Finalist level, and in February they will be notified of this designation. All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from this group of Finalists. Merit Scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments and potential for success in rigorous college studies. Three types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered in the spring of 2023. Every Finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit $2,500 Scholarships that will be awarded on a state-representational basis. About 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 220 corporations and business organizations for Finalists who meet their specified criteria. In addition, about 180 colleges and universities are expected to finance approximately 4,000 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.