Three Saline High School Seniors Are Semifinalists for the National Merit Scholarship

Three Saline High School students are semifinalists in the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program

Brian Liu, Neel Moudgal and Andrew Strong are among 16,000 semifinalists for the 68th annual program, which will award 7,250 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 million next spring.  About 95 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain standing as finalists, and half the finalists  are expected to win the scholarship and the "Merit Scholar" title.

High school juniors entered the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2021 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

Semifinalists and their high school must submit a detailed scholarship application with information about the student's record, participation, leadership, awards and employment.

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.

There are three types of National Merit Scholarships in the spring of 2023. The program will award 2,500 scholarships with $2,500 on a state-representational basis. 

About 950 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 180 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 160 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 3,800 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.

Finalists will be announced in February and the winners should be announced April-Spring.

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