By Amanda Lubinski
ALubinski@cherryroad.com
CLAY COUNTY — The Northland is home to several school districts that are high achieving year in and year out .This year is no exception as dozens of local students have been named National Merit Scholar semifinalists.
“These academically-talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 6,870 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $26 million that will be offered next spring,” reads a release from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.
More than 1.3 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2023 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, 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.
“The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors,” reports the scholarship organization. “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.”
The following is a list of local high school student semifinalists:
• Oak Park — Finnian Abshier;
• Staley — Austin Carrington,
Cameron Cooper, Maddex Hutchcraft and
Thuy-Duong Nguyen;
• Winnetonka — John Kreidler and Dylan
Nguyen;
• Liberty — Maxewll Hunter, Chandler Nguyen, Lacey Peycke, Aidan Wang and Yuhao Xiao;
• Liberty North — Drew Clawson, Natalie Coleman, Caroline Dilts and Amy Gates; and
• North Kansas City — Jamie Comer and Aaron Nicol.
“To become a finalist, the semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application, in which they provide information about the semifinalist’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment and honors and awards received,” reports NMSC. “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.”
National Merit Scholarship winners of 2025 will be announced in the spring.
“Every finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit $2,500 scholarships that will be awarded on a state-representational basis. About 770 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 130 corporations and business organizations for finalists who meet their specified criteria, such as children of the grantor’s employees or residents of communities where sponsor plants or offices are located. In addition, about 150 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 3,600 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for finalists who will attend the sponsor institution,” reports NMSC.