Credit: National Merit Scholarship Program.
National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) recently announced this year’s National Merit $2500 Scholarship winners. The 2,500 Merit Scholar designees were chosen from a talent pool of more than 15,000 outstanding Finalists in the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program.
National Merit $2500 Scholarship winners are the Finalists in each state judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills, and potential for success in rigorous college studies. The number of winners named in each state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the nation’s graduating high school seniors.
Local winners in the area were well represented:
Wissahickon High School: Katherine Chen, Vivian W. Han, Parth Patel, Jake Tan.
Upper Dublin High School: Hannah Marie Adams, Isabella Xie, Upper Dublin High School.
Gwynedd Mercy Academy High School: Lauren Elizabeth Ryan.
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation cautions against comparing schools “on the basis of numbers of Merit Scholarship winners,” officials said in a statement. “The National Merit Scholarship Program honors individual students who show exceptional academic ability and potential for success in rigorous college studies. The program does not measure the quality or effectiveness of education within a school, system or state.”
These Scholars were selected by a committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors, who appraised a substantial amount of information submitted by both the Finalists and their high schools: the academic record, including difficulty level of subjects studied and grades earned; scores from the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT); contributions and leadership in school and community activities; an essay written by the Finalist; and a recommendation written by a high school official.
2025 National Merit Scholarship Competition This year’s National Merit Scholarship Program began in October 2023 when high school juniors took the PSAT/NMSQT, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. Last fall, the highest-scoring participants in each state, representing less than one percent of the nation’s high school seniors, were named Semifinalists on a state-representational basis. More than 16,000 Semifinalists had an opportunity to continue in the competition.
From the Semifinalist group, over 15,000 students met the very high academic standards and other requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. By the conclusion of the 2025 program, more than 6,930 Finalists will have earned the “Merit Scholar” title and received a total of nearly $26 million in college scholarships.
NMSC, a not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance, was founded in 1955 specifically to conduct the National Merit Scholarship Program. The majority of scholarships offered each year are underwritten by approximately 280 independent corporate and college sponsors that share NMSC’s goals of honoring scholastically talented youth and encouraging academic excellence at all levels of education.
