This year, over 1.3 million students entered the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program. On Wednesday, 16,000 National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists were announced with seniors Carter Tollman and Shubh Patel among them. 

The prestige program gives students the opportunity to compete for some 6,870 National Merit scholarships. In order to enter the competition, the students must have taken the 2023 PSAT/NMSQT in their junior year. Students that score in the top 1% of the PSAT become semifinalists. 

Tollman and Patel were notified of their achievements on Wednesday, Sep. 11 by school administrators and counselors. Although the announcement was a great surprise to him, Patel believes his hard work helped him achieve it. 

“Hearing that I was one of the semifinalists was awesome and it’s a great honor,” Patel said. “It was cool seeing all those administrators and principals congratulate us. I’ve worked really hard for this. The PSAT was a very challenging test, but I pulled through.”

For Tollman, he has been aware of the opportunity to become a National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist since he was a sophomore. 

“We heard about it almost two years ago,” Tollman said. “The first time we took it, we were sophomores but that was only for practice, so there was a lot of anticipation for next year. Then we took it last school year, thinking that we could qualify to be semifinalists. I feel honored to now be a semifinalist.” 

Of the 16,000 National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists, 15,000 will advance to the finalist level where they will be announced in February. According to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, the semifinalists must submit a detailed scholarship application and have an outstanding academic record to become a finalist. Tollman looks forward to the next steps to become a finalist. 

“I’m just happy that I made it through, and hopefully I can continue on,” Tollman said. “I’m excited to be able to get the opportunity to become a finalist. I’ll definitely give my best to become a finalist, and potentially get a little bit of money for college.”