On September 9th, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation officially announced which students had been selected as Semifinalists in the 66th annual National Merit Program. These academically talented high school seniors had to score among the highest in their state on the PSAT (a preliminary version of the SAT) to qualify. Out of the 1.5 million students who took the test, only 16,000 were selected. Mamaroneck Seniors Devlin Corrigan, Greg Gold, Gabi Howse, Robbie Rasor, Sara Reisman, Thomas Seward, Abby Tucker, Mark Yukelis, and Grant Zobel were among those who made the cut. 

A common theme noted regarding the semifinalists is that they, surprisingly, didn’t do much to prepare for the PSAT. Zobel (‘21) said, “I took a practice test just to see how it felt, and I had already been doing some ACT practice tests, so I didn’t have to do too much in terms of studying.” Seemingly, whether students are preparing to take the ACT or SAT in the long run, they can apply their prep for those tests to this preliminary test and be successful. Howse (‘21) had a different experience sharing that Geometry Honors, Algebra 2 Honors, and AP Lang taught her everything she felt she needed to know for the test. It’s clear, though, that success on the test came pretty naturally to most of the semi-finalists without any out-of-the-way prep for it.

Looking forward, about 15,000 of the 16,000 Semifinalists will go on to obtain Finalist status. All of the finalists have a chance of winning one of 2,500 scholarships up for grabs, each worth $2,500. This is a big deal for all of the MHS students that are now in the running. Corrigan (‘21) says, “If I’m able to become a finalist and receive scholarship money, it could have a huge impact on my financial situation for the next few years. Hopefully, it’ll open up many new opportunities for me, but we’ll have to wait and see!” 

Indeed, we will have to wait and see. The NMSC will notify semifinalists to let them know whether they have reached the finalist level in early February 2021, and in March, they will start to contact those who have won scholarships. Best of luck goes to all MHS Semifinalists! There could be a scholarship in someone’s future!