Two Hillcrest High School students are among the 2,500 students who were selected for $2,500 scholarships from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. They are:

• Albert L. Cui
• Anna C. Wright

These Merit Scholar designees were chosen from a talent pool of more than 15,000 outstanding finalists in the 2010 National Merit Scholarship Program. The recipients were announced last Wednesday.

National Merit $2,500 Scholarship winners are the finalists in each state judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills and potential for success in rigorous college studies. A committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors select the winners. These scholars may use their awards at any regionally accredited U.S. college or university.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation is financing most of these single-payment National Merit $2,500 scholarships. Corporations and company foundations that sponsor awards through the corporation also help underwrite these scholarships with grants they provide in lieu of paying administrative fees.

All finalists competed for these awards. To select scholarship winners, a committee of educators appraised a substantial amount of information submitted by both the finalists and their high schools: the academic record, including difficulty level of subjects studied and grades earned; scores from two standardized tests; contributions and leadership in school and community activities; an essay written by the finalist; and the recommendation written by a high school official.

The number of winners named in each state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the nation’s high school graduating seniors.

This year’s competition for National Merit Scholarships began in October 2008 when more than 1.5 million juniors in over 22,000 high schools took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. Last fall, the highest-scoring participants in each state, representing less than 1 percent of the state’s seniors, were named semi-finalists on a state representational basis.

Only the 16,000 semi-finalists had an opportunity to continue in the competition. Approximately 15,000 semi-finalists met the very high academic standards and other requirements to advance to the finalist level of the competition. By the conclusion of the 2010 program, about 8,400 finalists will earn the “Merit Scholar” title and receive a total of over $36 million in college scholarships. NMSC, a not-for-profit corporation that operates without government assistance, was founded in 1955 specifically to conduct the annual National Merit Scholarship Program.