Two Severn Students Named National Merit Scholarship Finalists

After being announced as Semifinalists in the fall, Fritz and Zaremski are now among the 15,000 students who met the requirements to advance to Finalist standing. As Finalists, they will be considered for the National Merit Scholarship Awards being offered in 2025. In total, nearly $26 million in scholarship money will be awarded this spring through nearly 7,000 scholarships. Those Finalists who win a National Merit Scholarship will also earn the official Merit Scholar® title.

Announcements about the National Merit Scholarship winners for 2025 will begin in April and conclude in July. This year marks the 70^th annual National Meri Scholarship Program.

Over 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 one 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 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.