Beverly Hills High School’s Bradley Moon and Windward School’s Nicholas Cohen were named winners by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) this year. Both Beverly Hills students are among the 2,500 Merit Scholars who were chosen from a pool of 16,000 finalists. According to the corporation, each winner receives a $2,500 scholarship.
The academic competition is judged based on academic records, SAT and PSAT scores, participation in school and community activities, recommendations, and essays. Finalists are chosen by a team of college admissions officers and high school counselors.
The announcement on May 12 marked the second round of National Merit Scholarship awardees this year. More winners will be announced on June 2 and July 12, according to the corporation.
This year’s National Merit Scholarship Program began in October 2019 when over 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools took the PSAT/NMSQT, which served as an initial screen of program entrants.
Last fall, the highest-scoring participants in each state, representing less than one percent of the nation’s high school seniors, were named Semifinalists on a state representational basis. Only these approximately 17,000 Semifinalists had an opportunity to continue in the competition. From the Semifinalist group, some 16,000 students met the very high academic standards and other requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. By the conclusion of the 2021 program, about 7,500 Finalists will have earned the “Merit Scholar” title and received a total of nearly $30 million in college scholarships.
NMSC, a not-for-profit corporation that operates without government assistance, was founded in 1955 specifically to conduct the National Merit Scholarship Program. The majority of scholarships offered each year are underwritten by approximately 400 independent corporate and college sponsors that share NMSC’s goals of honoring scholastically talented youth and encouraging academic excellence at all levels of education.
