We currently have five National Merit finalists, seniors Erika McVey, Mary Efird, Hannah Derrick, Caleb Bagley, and Jake Lass. After going through the rigorous practices for the PSAT (practicing two to three times a week for multiple weeks), the PSAT testing, the in depth application and essay, and waiting for about a year and a half total to see if they became finalist, all the seniors recently heard back and all five made it to the finalist stage.

There are three types of scholarships offered, and with these scholarships come chances for a free ride to multiple schools in the state. This scholarship looks fantastic on college resumes as only 1% of people that apply are rewarded with the scholarship.

National Merit is an academic scholarship competition provided by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.  Each year, about 1.5 million high school students take the PSAT or the NMSQT to see if they qualify to apply for this scholarship. From there, the top 50,000 students that had the best combined scores can qualify for applying to this program. After then having to wait until September to be notified, they find out through the school if they have qualified as either a commended student, which means you can apply, or a semifinalist, meaning your application was amongst the best applicants. At this point, about 34,000 people receive commended letters, and about 16,000 people receive semifinalist letters, meaning that they are amongst the highest scorers in their state. In February, 15,000 of these applicants find out if they moved on to the finalist stage or not, which is where our five seniors are now.

When asked about this whole process, Efird said “I think it was as hard as it needed to be considering the amount of money that it can make available to people.”

Bagley’s advice to anyone applying next year was “Pay close attention to Mr. Anderson’s practices and tips. Just keep working really hard to keep your goal in mind!”

Efird’s advice was “Take it seriously because it can help you so much. Also take a lot of time on your essay because it is what sets you apart from the finalist versus semifinalist.”