Several area students named National Merit semifinalists

This week the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) announced the names of its semifinalists for this year’s National Merit Scholarship Program. Of the more than 16,00 semifinalists nationwide, two students attend Monroe-Woodbury High School, one student attends S.S. Seward Institute, and one student attends Warwick Valley High School.

Each of those local students may continue in the competition for a chance at winning some of the 6,870 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $26 million that will be offered next spring.

To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist level of the competition. According to NMSC, about 95% of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and approximately half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.

For the 2025 competition, NMSC said over 1.3 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 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 1% of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.

To become a finalist, the semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application detailing the student’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.

The local semifinalists can be found below:

Monroe-Woodbury High School

Olivia Copper

Dorian Tomaras

S.S. Seward Institute

Taylor Vogt

Warwick Valley High School

Evan Grundfast