Three Plainfield high school students are National Merit Scholarship 2016-17 finalists

PLAINFIELD – Plainfield North High School seniors Hayden Schennum and John Vu and Plainfield South High School senior Caitlin Yahnke are among about 15,000 National Merit Scholarship 2016-17 finalists nationwide.

Schennum, Vu and Yahnke are competing for 7,500 National Merit Scholarship awards, worth about $33 million. The awards will be announced later this spring. This is the 62nd year of the prestigious program, which honors academically talented high school seniors.

To become a National Merit Finalist, a student must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by the school principal, and earn SAT scores that confirm the student's earlier qualifying performance.

2016-17 Merit Scholarship winners will be announced between April-July 2017.