Neil Deshmukh ’20, Julius Ewungkem ’20, and Avijit Singh ’20 are among the 16,000 selected nationwide as Semifinalists in the 65th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. The academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,600 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $31 million that will be offered next spring.
Over 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2020 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2018 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screening for applicants. The nationwide pool of Semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.
From the approximately 16,000 Semifinalists, about 15,000 are expected to attain Finalist standing, which will be announced in February 2020. About half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title. Merit Scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies.
For more information about the competition, visit the National Merit Scholarship Corporation’s website at www.nationalmerit.org.
A version of this article also appeared in the 2019 Moravian Academy Fall Journal.