National Merit Scholarship Semi-finalists ( PDF download).
Please note that Over 16,000 students are semifinalists in the 68th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. The semifinalists are going to compete for several scholarships offered next spring, totaling around $28 million. There are more than 240 Alabama semi-finalists from over 60 schools represented, plus some home school students.
Finally, the list of the National Merit Semi-finalists for 2023 has been released. The scholarship, which I organized by the National Merit, will be awarded to successful candidates. Each scholarship worths $2,500.
Unlike most other scholarships which are designed to assist college and university students, the National Merit Scholarship is designed to provide financial assistance to high school students in the United States of America.
Host Nationality.
The National Merit Scholarship program is only for high school students who are citizens of and are studying in the United States of America.
National Merit Scholarship Worth.
Students who qualify as semi-finalists and finalists of the scholarship program are given rewards of $2,500 each.
This scholarship is used by the candidate to further his /her education to a higher level. Candidates who win the scholarship will also be given a National Merit Scholar badge.
Process of the National Merit Scholarship Program.
High school students take a preliminary SAT or National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test annually. The test is taken by almost 2 million candidates yearly.
Their scores are used for the selection process. Out of these 2 million candidates, only about 16,000 candidates with the top scores will be proceeding to the semi-finals of the program.
For the next stage, which is the finals, 15,000 candidates out of the previous 16,000 are selected. This makes it around 90% of the semi-finalists making it to the finals. It is from this large number that the scholarship Winners will be chosen from. The scholarship Winners are only 50% of the finalists.
Out of almost 2 million candidates who sat for the Preliminary SAT or National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, 50,000 candidates will receive a letter of recommendation. Though this doesn’t mean they have all made it to the semi-finals but it is designed only to commend their efforts and encourage them.
Even if some will not proceed to the next stage, the letter of recommendation helps recognize their brilliant performance in the program. Through this, other scholarship programs might decide to also award them scholarships. Some of the scholarship programs are sponsored by businesses, bonds or corporations.
National Merit Semi-finalists.
Like I mentioned earlier, 50,000 students with very impressive or high scores are chosen from the multitude of candidates that sat for the PSAT or NMSQT. These students are known as commended students.
Moving on, 16,000 students with higher scores are further selected from the 50,000 commended students. The 16,000 students are informed that they have now qualified as semi-finalists.
One impressive feature of this scholarship is that qualifiers are selected from all 50 states of the country. This is to ensure that all brilliant students are chosen from each state. Therefore, the list is collated based on the highest scoring students of every state.
National Merit Finalists
This is the final stage of the program. Here, each and every qualifying candidate is given a scholarship worth around $2,500.
February next year, 15,000 candidates from the previous 16,000 semi-finalists will be chosen as the finalists of the National Merit Scholarship.
Successful candidates will receive a mail at their home addresses to notify them of their progress.
Also, high school principals whose students are among the finalists will be notified and will be given a certificate to be awarded to each finalist in their school.
It is from this list, that the winners of the National Merit Scholarship Winners are selected. The selection is 100% unbiased as Winners are selected based on their abilities, scores and achievements.
Othe
r factors like academic records, previous test scores, school’s curriculum, student’s leadership records and essay are also put into evaluation for selection.
Factors like gender, religion, ethnic group, influence, power etc are not used for the winners selection at all. It is free and fair for all. Only those who deserve it will get it.
When will the National Merit Scholarship Award Finalists be announced?
Things are not rushed here. The finalists as as the winners of the scholarship program will be announced by February, next year.
Winners will also be given the National Merit Scholar badge to recognize them.
National Merit Scholarship Semi -finalists download
Here, I will give you the PDF file of the National Merit Semi-finalists. You should download the file and check if you are among the successful candidates.
If you aren’t among the commended students, don’t bother checking the names of the semi-finalists as the names are selected from the commended students’ list.
Congratulations to you in advance. Click here to National-Merit-Scholarship-ProgramDownload
Michael Larry is an instructor and an educationist, who like to bring out the best in other through his inspirational writeup.