Hoboken High School Senior Is National Merit Scholarship Winner

HOBOKEN, NJ — A senior at Hoboken High School has won a rare and coveted honor given to a limited number of college-bound students each year.

Madison Walia Peters found out this week that she has won a National Merit Scholarship, an award given based on PSAT scores, an essay, recommendations, and more.

Each fall, thousands of high-achieving students in both public and private high schools across the wait to see if they're among the semifinalists who will compete for a college scholarship of $2,000 per year or more. Then, the non-profit National Merit Scholarship Program whittles the number to a few thousand winners nationally who receive an annual scholarship from the foundation, or a corporation or college.

Last Sept. 11, the National Merit Scholarship Board released its list of 2025 semifinalists.

On Thursday, Madison Walia Peters found out she's a scholar, and will get a $2,500 scholarship toward college each year.

The full list of awardees has not yet been released, and is often released later in spring. Those offered a scholarship have until April to accept.

Competitive Process

Peters, who is a volleyball star at the school, was announced as a semifinalist last fall.

It was also announced that McNair High School in Jersey City, a magnet school, had six semifinalists. St. Peter's Prep had two, Kearny High School had one, High Tech High School had one, and Union City's Jose Marti STEM Academy had one.

(See which schools had winners in Bergen County here.)

Kearny and Hoboken High were the only two regular pubilc schools (without a special application process) in Hudson County that had a semifinalist.

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Read more about the National Merit Scholarship program here.