Parsippany Student Among 2023 National Merit Semifinalists

PARSIPPANY, NJ — One Parsippany Hills High School student has been named a semi-finalist for the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program.

The semi-finalists were announced last month and include around 16,000 high school seniors who will go on to compete for the scholarships that will be offered next spring.

In Parsippany, high school senior Avinash Ayalasomayajula is among the New Jersey students who have qualified for the next round of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation's national scholarship program.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation, a non-profit company that operates independently of the government, was founded in 1955 to administer the yearly National Merit Scholarship Program.

Scholarships are funded by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation and approximately 400 business organizations and higher education institutions that share the corporation's goals of honoring the nation's scholastic champions and encouraging academic excellence.

Steps in the 2024 Competition

High school juniors applied for the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2020 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which functioned as the program's initial screening.

The national pool of semifinalists, which represents less than one percent of high school seniors in the United States, contains the top scorers in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportionate to the percentage of graduating seniors in the state.

To advance to the final round, the semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application detailing 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 excellent academic record throughout high school, be sponsored and recommended by a high school authority, submit an essay, and get SAT or ACT results that corroborate previous achievement on the qualifying test.

From the approximately 16,000 semifinalists, approximately 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist stage, and they will be notified of this distinction in February.