EVANSTON, Ill. — More than 1,700 additional winners of National Merit Scholarships financed by colleges and universities have been announced by National Merit Scholarship Corporation. These Merit Scholar designees join more than 2,900 other college-sponsored award recipients who were announced in late May.

Officials of each sponsor college selected their winners from among finalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program who will attend their institution. College-sponsored awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship.

This year’s competition for National Merit Scholarships began when approximately 1.5 million juniors took the 2009 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. Semifinalists were the highest-scoring program entrants in each state.

To become a finalist, each semifinalist had to submit a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay and describing contributions and leadership activities in high school and the community, have an outstanding academic record, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official and earn SAT scores that confirm the qualifying test performance.

Susannah W. Wong of Lewiston was awarded the National Merit Northeastern University Scholarship. She is a graduate of Lewiston High School. Her probable career field is linguistics.

Benjamin D. Barnes of Readfield was awarded the National Merit Tufts University Scholarship. He is a graduate of Maranacook Community School. His probable career field is music/science.

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