Two Seniors Earn Corporate-Sponsored National Merit Scholarship

H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program senior John Bruce and Yorktown High School senior Kathleen Love are the recipients of a Corporate-Sponsored National Merit Scholarship. Most of these awards are renewable for up to four years of college undergraduate study and provide annual stipends that range from $500 to $10,000 per year. Some provide a single payment between $2,500 and $5,000.

Bruce will receive a scholarship from Reston-based Leidos, Inc., a global science and technology solutions and services leader working to solve the world’s toughest challenges in the defense, intelligence, homeland security, civil, and health markets.

Love has earned the Charles S. Robb Scholarship provided by the MITRE Corporation, a McLean-based not-for-profit organization that provides systems engineering, research and development, and information technology support to the government. It operates federally funded research and development centers for the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Homeland Security.

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, who are residents of communities the company serves, or who plan to pursue college majors or careers the sponsor wishes to encourage.

Funding for these National Merit Scholarships is provided by corporate organizations that represent nearly all sectors of American industry. Sponsors from the business community have underwritten awards offered in all 64 competitions, expending or committing more than $804million to support the intellectual development of the nation’s scholastically talented youth.

Over 1.6 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2017 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

To be considered for a National Merit Scholarship, Semifinalists had to fulfill requirements to advance to Finalist standing. Each Semifinalist was asked to complete a detailed scholarship application, which included 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® scores that confirmed their qualifying test performance.