Brookwood High Students Named National Merit Scholars

Twoseniors were recently named Corporate-Merit Scholars, and they are among 1,000 students in the nation who won the honor. 

Sokrat Bufi and Stephanie Johnson, both students at Brookwood High received the award, which comes with a scholarship through the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Bufi received a scholarship from BB&T, and the student plans to study electrical engineering. Johnson received a scholarship from Georgia-Pacific, LLC, and she plans to study elementary education. 

Most of the awards come with a renewable scholarship for up to four years of study and a stipend from $500 to $10,000 per year. Some provide a single payment between $2,500 and $5,000.

One other Gwinnett County student was also named a Corporate-Merit Scholar. Scholarship. Peter Schnaak, of Collins Hill High, also received an award. He plans to study research and medicine.

The three Gwinnett County students were selected from a pool of finalists in the 2011 National Merit Scholarship Program who met criteria of scholarship sponsors. Corporate organizations generally provide awards for finalists who are children of employees, residents of communities the company serves, or have plans to pursue majors or careers the company wishes to encourage. About 200 companies, foundations and businesses finance the awards.

More than 1.5 million students entered the competition last school year as juniors by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. The highest scoring students in each state were then invited to apply to be a finalist. Finalist were determined by academic record, a recommendation by the school principal and a student essay.

The students can use their scholarships at college or university in the United States.