7 Awarded National Merit Scholarships

Seven Ventura County students have won National Merit Scholarships provided by colleges and universities.

The students were among 2,500 high school seniors who received the awards, worth $250 to $2,500 annually, for up to four years of undergraduate study at the sponsor’s institute.

Winners and the sponsoring schools were:

Brant Bridges of Adolfo Camarillo High, UC Berkeley; Jeffrey Brunner of Rio Mesa High in Oxnard, USC; Michael Ferrante of Villanova Preparatory School in Ojai, Harvey Mudd College; Kenneth Young of Thacher School in Ojai, Rice University; Mary Lewinski of La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks, USC; and Shane Maguire of Thousand Oaks High, UC San Diego.

In addition, Annajo Isbell, who is being home-schooled in Oxnard, won a University of Oklahoma scholarship.

Earlier this spring, the scholarship corporation announced winners of the corporate-sponsored and $2,000 National Merit Scholarship awards. In late July, the corporation will also announce several hundred additional recipients of the college-sponsored scholarships.

Scholarship winners were chosen from among a group of finalists nationwide. Of the more than 1.1 million juniors who took the 1995 PSAT / NMSQT, 15,000 top scorers, or 1% of high school seniors nationwide, became semifinalists. About 90% of the semifinalists became finalists by meeting additional requirements such as good grades, high test scores or good recommendations from their high school principals. Students also had to submit a written description of their activities, interests and goals.