4 North Hills Seniors Named National Merit Semifinalists

ROSS TOWNSHIP, PA — North Hills High School seniors Ella Demoise, Valerio Gomez-Frittelli, Joshua Kim and Nicholas Strother have been named National Merit semifinalists for 2024.

High school juniors enter the National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship qualifying test, which serves as an initial screen of program entrants. More than 1.3 million juniors in 21,000 high schools entered the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the qualifying test.

The highest-scoring entrants in each state become semifinalists and now have the opportunity to compete for approximately 7,140 National Merit scholarships worth nearly $28 million to be offered next spring. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s >percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

To become a finalist, the semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application in which they provide information about their 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.

Approximately 95 percent of semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing with about half of those winning a National Merit scholarship, earning the title of merit scholar.

Sixteen thousand high school seniors, less than one percent of all high school seniors in the U.S., were named 2024 semifinalists, the 69th year for the National Merit Scholarship Program.

National Merit Scholarship winners of 2024 will be announced beginning in April.