National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) recently announced approximately 750 additional winners of National Merit Scholarships financed by colleges and universities. These designees join more than 3,000 other college-sponsored award recipients who were announced in June.
One of those recipients is Garland High School graduate Cathryn I. Saldana who will likely pursue a career in computer science.
Officials of each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from among the Finalists in the NMSC program who will attend their institution.
This year, 153 colleges and universities are sponsoring over 3,800 Merit Scholarship awards. Sponsor colleges include 81 private and 72 public institutions located in 42 states and the District of Columbia.
This final group of winners brings the number of 2023 National Merit Scholars to more than 7,140. These distinguished high school graduates will receive scholarships for undergraduate study worth nearly $28 million. In addition to college-sponsored awards, two other types of National Merit Scholarships were offered—2,500 National Merit $2500 Scholarships, for which all Finalists competed, and about 840 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who met criteria specified by their grantor organizations.
2023 National Merit Scholarship Competition
This year’s competition for National Merit Scholarships began when high school juniors took the 2021 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. In September 2022, more than 16,000 Semifinalists were named on a state-representational basis in numbers proportional to each state’s percentage of the national total of graduating high school seniors. Semifinalists were the highest scoring entrants in each state and represented less than 1% of the nation’s seniors.
To become a Finalist, each Semifinalist had to complete a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay, describing leadership positions and contributions in school and community activities, showing an outstanding academic record and being endorsed and recommended by a high school official. Semifinalists also had to take the SAT® or ACT® and earn scores that confirmed their performance on the initial qualifying test. From the Semifinalist group, over 15,000 attained Finalist standing, and about half of the Finalists were chosen to receive National Merit Scholarships.
About:
NMSC, a not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance, was founded in 1955 to conduct the National Merit Scholarship Program. Over the past 68 years, approximately 375,000 outstanding young individuals have won National Merit Scholarships worth more than $1.3 billion. The majority of awards offered each year are underwritten by approximately 340 independent corporate and college sponsors that support NMSC’s efforts to recognize scholastically talented youth and encourage the pursuit of academic excellence.