Claire Sheen is 2015 National Merit finalist

Claire Sheen, a senior at MMI Preparatory School, has been notified she is a finalist in the 2015 National Merit Scholarship Program.

Sheen, daughter of Kwangsup and Chaeyun Sheen of Mountaintop, is one of the academically talented high school seniors who have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,600 National Merit Scholarships worth about $33 million that will be offered in the spring.

Sheen is one of approximately 15,000 students named as a National Merit Finalist, stemming from the 1.5 million students who enter the scholarship program by taking the PSAT in their junior year of high school, which serves as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of finalists, representing less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state.

Three types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered in the spring of 2015. 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 240 corporations and business organizations for Finalists who meet their specified criteria, such as children of the grantor’s employees or residents of communities where sponsor plants or offices are located. In addition, about 200 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 4,100 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.

These scholarship recipients will join more than 308,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.

NMSC, a not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance, was established in 1955 specifically to conduct the annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Scholarships are underwritten by NMSC with its own funds and by approximately 440 business organizations and higher education institutions that share NMSC’s goals of honoring the nation’s scholastic champions and encouraging the pursuit of academic excellence.