On July 15 the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) announced over 800 additional winners of National Merit Scholarships financed by colleges and universities. These Merit Scholar designees join more than 2,900 other college-sponsored award recipients who were announced in June. This is the last group of National Merit Scholar of honorees to be announced in 2024. In three spring releases, NMSC announced winners of corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards, National Merit® $2500 Scholarship awards, and the first group of college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards.

Officials of each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from among the Finalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program who will attend their institution. College-sponsored awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship.

This year, 149 colleges and universities are sponsoring approximately 3,700 Merit Scholarship awards. Sponsor colleges include 77 private and 72 public institutions located in 42 states and the District of Columbia. These distinguished high school graduates will receive scholarships for undergraduate study worth a total of nearly $26 million. In addition to college-sponsored awards, two other types of National Merit Scholarships were offered—2,500 National Merit $2500 Scholarships, for which all Finalists competed, and about 770 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who met criteria specified by their grantor organizations.

This year’s competition for National Merit Scholarships began when high school juniors took the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. In September 2023, more than 16,000 Semifinalists were named on a state-representational basis in numbers proportional to each state’s percentage of the national total of graduating high school seniors. Semifinalists were the highest scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than one percent of the nation’s seniors.

To become a Finalist, each Semifinalist had to complete a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay, describing leadership positions and contributions in school and community activities, showing an outstanding academic record, and being endorsed and recommended by a high school official. Semifinalists also had to take the SAT® or ACT® and earn scores that confirmed their performance on the initial qualifying test. From the Semifinalist group, over 15,000 attained Finalist standing, and about half of the Finalists were chosen to receive National Merit Scholarships.

NMSC, a not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance, was founded in 1955 to conduct the National Merit Scholarship Program. Over the past 69 years, approximately 382,000 outstanding young individuals have won National Merit Scholarships worth more than $1.3 billion. The majority of awards offered each year are underwritten by approximately 320 independent corporate and college sponsors that support NMSC’s efforts to recognize scholastically talented youth and encourage the pursuit of academic excellence.

Katy ISD honorees are:

· Ray R. Cheng, Obra D. Tompkins High School, Katy. Probable career field: computer science.

· Tristan Lew, Seven Lakes High School, Katy. Probable career field: neuroscience.

· Irshad A. Mir, Seven Lakes High School, Katy. Probable career field: computer science.

· Amal S. Nazarali, Jordan High School, Fulshear. Probable career field: biomedical engineering.