Achieving an honor shared with only a few thousand students, four students from the area received National Merit scholarships.

John McKelvey of Sachse, Jaxson Hill of Wylie, and Annie Jain and Rohan Mehta of Murphy were each awarded $2,500 from the National Merit program.

Only 7,500 National Merit finalists across the country earn scholarships. Most of these are sponsored by businesses or colleges. The $2,500 National Merit scholarships are funded by the program itself, making them more competitive.

To earn the scholarship, a student must also be a National Merit finalist, a difficult process in itself. The program begins by recognizing the 50,000 students with the highest PSAT scores in the U.S. Of these, 34,000 are named commended students, and the remaining 16,000 move on to become semifinalists in September of their senior year.

For the full story, see the May 23 issue or subscribe online.

By Morgan Howard • [email protected]