<p>Excerpt from Northwestern news release (February 20):</p>
<p>...This year's freshman class has a record number of National Merit Scholars. There are 198 National Merit Scholars, about 10 percent of the class and the highest number ever. The previous year's freshman class included 174 Merit Scholars.</p>
<p>Northwestern now is fourth among private institutions in the number of National Merit freshmen and No. 6 overall. The number of Northwestern Merit Scholars this year is higher than Yale, Chicago, Princeton, Stanford and Vanderbilt, all of which were ahead of Northwestern the previous year but had significant drops in their numbers...</p>