Ten JHS students named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists

Graphic by Clara Toot

By Lynn Meadows, JCSD Director of Communications

JOHNSTON, Ia. (Sept. 13, 2024) — Ten Johnston High School students have been named semifinalists in the 70th annual National Merit Scholarship Program, giving them an opportunity to compete for 6,870 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $26 million that will be offered next spring.

They are: James Anderson, Celia DiNitto, Abigail Good, Zakary Haring, Amogh Jithendra, Gabriela La Rota, Jonah Rowland, Shreyas Shrestha, Nikolay Silkin and David Zhang.

These Johnston students are among more than 16,000 academically talented high school seniors nationwide selected as National Merit semifinalists. The Johnston Community School District has a rich tradition of having students qualify as semifinalists, finalists and scholarship recipients each year from this prestigious program.

Next steps in nationwide competition

More than 1.3 million juniors in about 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 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.

To be considered for a Merit Scholarship® award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level of the competition. About 95 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and approximately half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title.

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 that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.

From more than 16,000 semifinalists, more than 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist level, and in February they will be notified of this designation. All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from this group of finalists. Merit Scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin or religious preference.

Types and timeline of National Merit scholarships

Three types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered in spring 2025:

Every finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit® $2,500 Scholarships that will be awarded
on a state-representational basis.
About 770 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 130 corporations and business organizations for Finalists who meet their specified criteria, such as children of the grantor’s employees or residents of communities where sponsor plants or offices are located.
In addition, about 150 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 3,600 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.

The 2025 National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July 2025. These scholarship recipients will join more than 382,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.

The National Merit Scholarship Program (NMSC) is a not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance. The program was established in 1955 specifically to conduct the annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Scholarships are underwritten by NMSC with its own funds and by approximately 280 business organizations, higher education institutions, and individual donors that share NMSC’s goals of honoring the nation’s scholastic champions and encouraging the pursuit of academic excellence.