Officials of the National Merit Scholarship Program (NMSC®) announced the names of approximately 16,000 Semifinalists, including four (4) Springboro High School students, in the 70th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Springboro High School students Patrick Keller, Phoebe Matthew, Ethan Rhodes, and Ethan Virtue have all been named a Semifinalist in the NMSC Program.
These academically talented high school students have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 6,870 National 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% of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and about half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title.
Over 1.3 million juniors in more than 21,000 high schools entered the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2023 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 1% of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state.
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.
National Merit Scholarship winners of 2025 will be announced in four (4) nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join more than 382,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.