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A student from Steubenville High School joined several students from across the Ohio Valley in finding their names on the prestigious list of National Merit Scholarship semifinalists, which were announced Wednesday.
Steubenville’s Cole Carey joined five Wheeling Park High School seniors and one senior each from The Linsly School and John Marshall High School among the more than 16,000 semifinalists in this year’s group. They will have the opportunity to continue the competition for around 6,700 National Merit Scholarships worth approximately $24 million that will be awarded starting next spring.
From Wheeling Park, Dominic Brown, Tristin Gonzalez, Audrey Kennamond, Rex Montanye and Alexei Zhao all were named semifinalists, joining Linsly’s Jaxon Milam and John Marshall’s Sophie Cunningham.
As semifinalists, these students are part of a group representing less than 1% of United States high school seniors.
To be considered for a Merit Scholarship, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. About 95% of semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and approximately half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.
More than 1.2 million high school juniors in around 20,000 high schools entered the 2027 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists 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 or ACT scores confirming the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.
Finalists will be notified in February and then, between April and July, students will be notified if they have received a scholarship from one of three groups — from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation itself, from one of 150 corporations or business organizations or from among 150 colleges and university that finance college-sponsored awards.
National Merit Scholarship winners of 2027 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July.
These scholarship recipients will join approximately 395,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.