Eric W. Gadecki, of Bedford, has been named a National Merit Scholarship winner. Gadecki, a senior at Trinity High School in Manchester, will study biology at Clemson (S.C.) University.

Officials of each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from the finalists in the 2012 National Merit Scholarship Program who plan to attend their institution.

These awards provide from $500 to $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution ?nancing the scholarship.

This year, 197 higher education institutions are underwriting Merit Scholarship awards through the National Merit Scholarship Program. Sponsor colleges and universities include 117 private and 80 public institutions in 45 states and the District of Columbia.

College-sponsored Merit Scholarship winners are a part of about 8,300 high school seniors who will receive National Merit Scholarships for college undergraduate study worth more than $35 million.

About 1.5 million juniors in some 22,000 high schools entered the 2012 National Merit Scholarship competition when they took the 2010 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

Last fall, approximately 16,000 semifinalists were named on a state representational basis in numbers proportional to each state’s percentage of the national total of graduating high school seniors. Semifinalists were the highest-scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than one percent of the nation’s seniors.

To compete for Merit Scholarship awards, semifinalists ?rst had to advance to the finalist level of the competition by ful?lling additional requirements.

Each semifinalist was asked to submit a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay and providing 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 scores that confirmed the qualifying test performance.

From the semifinalist group, some 15,000 met requirements for finalist standing, and more than half of the finalists will be Merit Scholarship winners in 2012.