Mariana Van Eycke is one of a select group of distinguished high school seniors from across the nation to have won corporate-sponsored National Merit Scholarship Awards.

Van Eycke is receiving the National Merit Motorola Solutions Scholarship. She will attend the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to study computer science and bioengineering.

National Merit winners are the finalists who have the strongest combination of academic skills and achievements, extracurricular accomplishments and potential for success in rigorous college studies.

Van Eycke entered the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program as a high school junior in 2023 when she scored well on the SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. In September 2024, she was named a semifinalist, putting her among the top 1 percent of 1.3 million high school seniors in the nation who took the test.

To be considered for a scholarship, each semifinalist completed a detailed scholarship application including a written essay and information about extracurricular activities, awards and leadership positions. Semifinalists also had to have an outstanding academic record, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official and earn SAT or ACT test scores confirming their qualifying test performance.

Out of the 15,000 students who meet the finalist requirements, nearly 7,000 finalists were selected to receive National Merit Scholarships totaling nearly $26 million.