Area students named National Merit semifinalists

By Jennifer Eisenbart

Editor

Two area students have been named as semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program.

Callum Leemkuil-Schuerman of Burlington High School and Madison Lindeman of Waterford were both named semifinals from the state of Wisconsin.

Approximately 16,000 semifinalists are named nation-wide. About 90 percent of those students will meet finalist criteria, and about 7,600 will win National Merit Scholarships worth a total of about $33 million next spring.

In order to be eligible for the scholarship program, high school juniors must take the preliminary SAT test. The semifinalists represent less than 1 percent of the high school seniors in the country. The number of semifinalists in the state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

Every finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit $2,500 scholarships, while an additional 1,000 corporate-based scholarships will also be provided. In addition, about 200 colleges and universities finance another 4,100 scholarships.