Six students from Saline High School have been chosen as Semifinalists for the 2025 National Merit Scholarship.
They are:
- William Hong
- Weiran (Alice) Jiang
- Daniel Lemmerhirt
- Leah Mueller
- Adrian Sieh
- Caleb Summers
These students were recognized at a recent Saline Area Schools Board of Education meeting.
This fall the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) announced the names of more than 16,000 Semifinalists in the 70th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. The NMSC said 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.”
According to the NMSC, over 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. NMSC said the nationwide pool of Semifinalists, representing less than one percent 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.
It’s estimated there are just over 500 Semifinalists in Michigan.
To become a Finalist, the NMSC said a 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. 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 NMSC said about 95 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and about half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.
Photo: Saline’s national merit semifinalists and their families along with school board members and staff. Photo courtesy of Saline Area Schools