Names of those who earned the title of National Merit Semifinalists were released on the 10th of September, and two local seniors were a part of the prestigious 16,000 awarded.
The National Merit Scholarship is determined by a student’s score on the PSAT, which is available to take during the junior year of high school. This program is run by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, which organizes the awards with help from many large corporations and businesses without assistance from the government. After this, a selective group of students is awarded Commended Scholar, and an even smaller group is awarded semifinalist. This is what seniors Maddie Horvath and Ben Seguin earned. They now have the ability to submit a detailed application to qualify for Finalist and then potentially even Scholar level. Both semifinalists explained that the application consisted of information about extracurriculars, parents’ education, future goals, and an essay. With each level of the scholarship program, many colleges offer scholarships and financial aid to students.
Roughly 3.5 million students take the PSAT each year, most of which are administered to sophomores and juniors in the fall. The National Merit Scholarship Program honors approximately 17,000 students as Semifinalists. They also award an additional 40,000 students who scored in the top three percent of all test-takers, known as Commended Students. Lily Fraher, who is also a senior at MHS, was one of the students awarded the Commended Scholar. The recent cutoffs show that the class of 2026 has the most qualifying semifinalist scores ever recorded for the PSAT.
Both students were notified of the award a week ahead of the public announcement by being called down to the counselors, and were given the information to apply further. Maddie said, “I was kind of relieved because I’d been waiting to finalize my applications until after I’d gotten the information about this, so I was happy I earned it and glad I could turn in my applications!” Ben also felt similarly and was really happy about finding out that he was a National Merit Semifinalist.
