Officials of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) recently announced the names of over 16,000 semifinalists in the 70th annual National Merit Scholarship program. 11 Livingston High School students earned this honor, including Payton Gao, Eric Guo, Alina Lee, Lelun Li, Eric Niu, Benjamin Silversten, Shining Wang, Audrey Xu, Henry Xue, Kevin Zhang, and Asher Zhao.
These high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 6,870National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $26 million that will be offered next spring. To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level of the competition. About 95 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and approximately half of the finalists will win aNational Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.
The NMSC, a not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance, was established in 1955 specifically to conduct the annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Scholarships are underwritten by the NMSC with its own funds and by approximately 340 business organizations and higher education institutions that share the NMSC’s goals of honoring the nation’s scholastic champions and encouraging the pursuit of academic excellence.
Commended Students
In addition, 49 students were named “commended students” in the competition. While these students will not continue on in the competition, they were recognized as having demonstrated outstanding potential for academic success. These students includedAlexandra Andreias, Darcy Bialick, Ashlea Budzinski, Esther Chi, Adam DaCosta, Aaron Dai, Joshua Dalton, Arya Deshmukh, Anya Goel, Aditya Jatania, Christina Jiang, Vineeth Kanpa, Joshua Kim, Elizabeth Lang, Daniel Lee, Chloe Leung, Spencer Levine, Avery Li, (Continued on Page A-6) Sara Lin, Joanna Liu, Phoebe Liu, Harish Lolla, Samay Malde, Oishik Mukherjee, Haari Muthukumar, Julia Ou, Brian Pan, Adon Panjikaran, Sophia Peng, Bryan Qi, Siddharth Sanjeev, Aarushi Saxena, Riddhi Shah, Jessica Shen, Rebecca Shen, Ihina Shukla, Nicholas Siao, Parker Wahle, Daniel Wang, Jasmine Wang, Derek Xie, Fred Xu, Lucy Yu, Elisia Zeng, Alexander Zhang, Kevin H. Zhang, Sophia Zheng, Valentina Zheng, and Jenny Zhu.
Steps in 2025 Competition
Over 1.3 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2023 Preliminary SAT/ National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors. To become a finalist, the semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application, in which they provide information about the semifinalist’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received. A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT orACT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test. From over 16,000 semifinalists, more than 15,000 are expected to advance to the Finalist level, and in February they will be notified of this designation. All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from this group of finalists. Merit Scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference.
National Merit Scholarships Three types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered in the spring of 2025. Every finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit $2,500 Scholarships that will be awarded on a state-representational basis. About 770 corporatesponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 130 corporations and business organizations for finalists who meet their specified criteria, such as children of the grantor’s employees or residents of communities where sponsor plants or offices are located. In addition, about 150 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 3,600 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for finalists who will attend the sponsor institution. National Merit Scholarship winners of 2025 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join nearly 382,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.
