North Hunterdon High School congratulates three seniors named Semifinalists and 17 students named Commended Students in the 65th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.
Semifinalists are current seniors Elizabeth Caso, Isabella Stagg and Lilian Wiegand.
Approximately 16,000 Semifinalists were named nationwide and will continue in the competition for some 7,600 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $31 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 90 percent of Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and about half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.
About 1.5 million juniors in more than 21,000 high schools entered the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2018 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), 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.
Semifinalists will be notified in February if they advanced to the Finalists level. Three types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered in the spring of 2020. Every Finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit $2,500 Scholarships that will be awarded on a state-representational basis. About 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 220 corporations and business organizations for Finalists who meet their specified criteria. In addition, about 180 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 4,100 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.
National Merit Scholarship winners of 2020 will be announced in four nationwide news releases from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join more than 345,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.
In addition, seventeen students from North Hunterdon High School have been selected as Commended Students, and they are:
Elise Chapman, Angelica Chin, Alexander Dietz, Philip Frey, Jadyn Funkhouser, Constantine Kapetanakis, Rena Li, Shaelyn Marks, Grant Miller, Arya Nagabhyru, Grace Palahnuk, Taylor Panzarino, Nicolas Pinzon, Renee Soika, Bridget Treanor, Emma Twohy, and Estelle Yeung.
A letter of commendation from the school and National Merit Scholarship Corporation, which conducts the program, will be presented by the high school principals to these scholastically talented seniors who have been selected as Commended Students.
About 34,000 Commended Students throughout the nation are being recognized for their exceptional academic promise. Although they will not continue in the 2020 competition for National Merit Scholarship awards, Commended Students placed among the top 50,000 scorers of more than 1.5 million students who entered the 2020 competition by taking the 2018 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®).
