MADISON – Christen R. Li has won a corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship. The PPG Foundation is financing her award.

National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced most corporate-sponsored Merit Scholar designees for 2021 in April; however, Li’s award became available after that announcement.

Li was a student at Oakwood Adventist Academy. Her probable career field will be international relations.

Li won the National Merit PPG Foundation Community Scholarship. PPG of Pittsburgh, Pa. finances the PPG Foundation. Scholarships are awarded to exceptionally able students who live in selected communities where PPG maintains manufacturing or distribution operations or who are children of PPG employees.

PPG operates and researches innovative breakthroughs in more than 70 countries. These businesses develop and deliver paints, coatings and materials for customers in construction, consumer products and markets for industry and transportation, along with aftermarkets.

By the end of the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program, distinguished high school seniors will have been offered more than 7,500 National Merit Scholarships for college undergraduate study. The scholarships totaled approximately $30 million.

Approximately 1,000 of the awards, like the scholarship that Li has won, are financed by about 140 companies, foundations and other business organizations for National Merit Scholarship Program Finalists who meet their scholarship sponsors’ criteria.

Scholarship winners are the candidates judged to have the strongest combination of academic skills and achievements, extracurricular accomplishments and potential for success in rigorous college studies.

In 1955, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation was established to conduct the annual National Merit Scholarship Program. The not-for-profit corporation operates without government assistance.

Most National Merit Scholarships offered each year are underwritten by some 400 independent corporate and college sponsors that support the corporation’s efforts to honor the nation’s scholastic champions and encourage academic excellence at all levels of education.

For more information, visit nationalmerit.org.