Spring-Ford Student Wins Elite Corporate National Merit Scholarship

ROYERSFORD, PA — A Spring-Ford Area High School student has joined a tiny percentage of elite students around the nation to be named a corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholar.

About 700 winners nationwide were selected from a pool of 16,000 semifinalists, which were in turn selected from 1.6 million students who took the PSAT last fall.

Among them is Spring-Ford's Alina Li, of Phoenixville who plans to study statistics. She was awarded the Astrazeneca-sponsored scholarship.

Corporate sponsors provide scholarships to finalists who are children of their employees, residents of communities the company serves, or who plan to pursue college majors or careers the company wishes to encourage.

The awards range from $1,000 to $10,000 per year for up to four years of undergraduate study. Exact amounts are not disclosed for specific students.

High school juniors automatically enter into the competition by taking the PSAT. High scorers are then invited to complete a detailed scholarship application, including an essay, information on leadership and extracurricular activities, and more.