NORTH ANDOVER — Mike Norcia doesn't have to worry about paying for college next year.
The Methuen High School senior won a free ride to Merrimack College earlier this month. All he had to do was take a test.
Norcia, 17, was one of more than 50 high-school seniors to take part in the college's first STEM Scholarship Competition on Nov. 15. The competition tested students' math, technology, engineering and science skills, with the winner receiving four years of free tuition, equal to $120,000.
"I knew it would be a tough competition but I thought, 'I'll just try to work through this and see what happens,'" Norcia said. "I was pretty comfortable with it."
Students spent hours answering multiple choice questions and working out solutions to analytical questions. The top four scorers moved on to a critical thinking round.
Students were presented with a specific open-ended problem and had to develop and present a creative solution, something with which Norcia had experience. He had to do something similar in a high-school business competition.
"This was kind of like the SATs," Norcia said. "But it really wasn't as bad as the SATs."
Students from six states as far away as Maryland took part in the competition, something the college hopes to do again next year.
It was a way to attract more students to a growing science, engineering and math program at the college.
"We were especially excited about offering this scholarship opportunity to students during these tough economic times," said Josephine Modica-Napolitano, dean of science and engineering at Merrimack College.
The three other finalists were each awarded $15,000-a-year scholarships for four years. They are David Lavoie of Chelmsford, Linden Krouse of Milford, N.H., and Michael Jutras of Goffstown, N.H.
Norcia, a member of the track team and honor society at Methuen High, said he plans on majoring in engineering, with a minor in business.
His older brother, David Norcia, is a junior at Merrimack College. It was David who urged his little brother to sign up for the exam.
"He e-mailed me and told me to go for it. ... I'm happy I listened to him," Norcia said.
