Evergreen student Jacob Goodson has made it to the semifinals portion of the National Merit Scholarship Program. Goodson is one of 16,000 semifinalists across the country apart of the 68th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.
According to the scholarship corporation, to be considered for the Merit Scholarship Award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition.
About 95 percent 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.
Continuing, high school juniors entered the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2021 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 one percent of U.S. high school seniors, and includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.
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.
From over 16,000 semifinalists, more than 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist level, and in February they will be notified of this designation. All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from this group of finalists.
National Merit Scholarship winners of 2023 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July.
These scholarship recipients will join nearly 368,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.
Jacob Goodson has some work to do in order to reach his goal. It is clear though that determination is a driving force in what he is trying to achieve.
Out of all the students selected, Mr. Goodson is the only one that will be moving forward within the four-county area.