Fourteen students from Johnson County are semifinalists in the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program.
Franklin Community High School student Luke Bromley, Whiteland Community High School student Annabelle White, Center Grove High School students Blake Hanshaw, Daniel Liu, Anubhav Majumdar, Adeline Moore, Arav Nair, Gourav Pany, Hunter Petkovich, Quinn Smith, Jordan Steinkamp and Rupesh Vats, and home school student Ty Wilson are the local semifinalists for the National Merit Scholarship Program.
The students now have an opportunity to continue to compete for more than 6,800 scholarships offered next spring.
Over 1.3 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2025 program by taking the 2023 Preliminary SAT/ National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. The pool of semifinalists includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.
To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. Requirements include a detailed scholarship application, where students provide information about their 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 performance.
About 95% of the Semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, with half going on to win a scholarship and earning the Merit Scholar title.
In February, semifinalists will be notified if they advance to the group of finalists.
National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced beginning in April of 2025 and concluding in July.
