The National Merit Scholarship Corporation chooses one institution of higher learning to showcase in their annual publication. This year that institution is Iowa State University.

“I think it is a great honor that ISU was selected, since there was only one institution chosen,” said Anne Arends, director of special recruitments.

Photographers from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation took photographs of the National Merit Scholars at ISU on Monday and Tuesday. The photos will be featured in their publication which will be finished in Jan. 1997.

This year ISU has 154 first-year national merit scholars and four first-year national achievement scholars. “We have more than 330 merit and achievement scholars on campus,” Arends said.

The scholarships are awarded to finalists during their senior year of high school. “You can win a National Merit Corporation scholarship, a university-funded scholarship or a corporation-sponsored scholarship,” said Jessica Kearney, a National Merit scholar.

“You are given the scholarship, and as long as you keep up your GPA. That is all the student has to worry about,” she said.

Every year the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, based in Evanston, Ill., visits 12,000 high schools and 1,200 colleges and sponsors to explain their scholarship program.

The scholarship process begins in high school, Kearney said. Students have to score well on the PSAT test to be eligible.

If eligible, the student must complete an application, take the SAT and write an essay. Kearney said that during the application process, the students go through three steps of elimination: the commended scholar, semi-finalist and scholarship finalists.

The photographers said they were pleased with the participation they received from the ISU students and faculty when photographing the classrooms.