National Merit Commended Students
Awards Criteria
The National Merit Scholarship competition begins with the PSAT in October of your junior year of high school and ends in spring of your senior year. Students must pass several qualifying stages to receive a National Merit Scholarship:
Program Recognition Students. The 50,000 top scorers on the PSAT are selected out of about 1.5 million entrants. These students are notified in April of their junior year.
Semifinalists. Chosen from the Program Recognition Students, the Semifinalists are the highest PSAT scorers from each state. Only they can apply for National Merit Scholarships.
Commended Students. In late September, about two thirds of the entrants who were not selected to be semifinalists receive Letters of Commendation. They are now out of the running for the National Merit Scholarships, but some may receive merit scholarships sponsored by corporations.
Finalists. In February, about 15,000 finalists are named. Their high schools are notified and so are two colleges they've selected. Reaching this level of recognition is noteworthy.
Merit Scholars. Finally, about half of the finalists are named "Merit Scholars" and receive National Merit Scholarships. These winners are notified beginning in March.
Commended Students
|
School Year |
Commended Students |
|---|---|
| Class of 2024 |
Kiran Aman Nicholas J. Franco Peter A. Kaya Gretchikha David Kobobel Anthony R. LaLonde Vishakh Menon Lakshita Palanivelu Matthew C. Salloum Andrew Q. Tran Christina E. Wang John Wu |
| Class of 2023 |
Mason B. Anton Nideesh Bharath Kumar Charlotte F. Kaya Elizabeth M. Mastrangelo Kiera Meylakh Cyril Rikh Meghana Sankar Tommaso J. Smith Aarnav Tendulkar Joseph A. Tomaskovic Vicky Yang |
|
Class of 2022 |
Joshua R. Bassin Alaina P. Dimarucut Ryan M Hunstein Surya Maddali Anvitha Manepalli Colton J. Mikolajczyk Adya Mohanty Ethan D. Moskovitz Nisha Narayanan Gabriella Szyc Lily A. Wong |
|
Class of 2021 |
Joshua T. Bernstein Matthew A. Brand Jenna H. Han Chris D. Kourkoulakos Joanna Li Varun U. Patel Matthew D.Sequeira Kruti C. Shah Sofia M. Smith Kyle s. Springer Jeddy Xie Jessica x. Xing |
|
Class of 2020 |
Jonathan Koa Michael Muzafarov Ethan Bompane Juliet Corless Matthew Skrod Logan Buchalter Hansel Kim Scott Tremblay Natalia Fay |
|
Class of 2019 |
Michael D. Costantino Samuel B. Darrow Fiona M. Gavin Spencer O. Sandusky Joshua A. Sequeira |
|
Class of 2018 |
James A. Ariemma Jacob Brand Malcolm J. Cantor Michael Cantow Carolyn Mavretish Brianna M. Schmidt |
|
Class of 2017 |
Jack M. Darrow Benjamin G. Gerson Harveen Kaur Elise D. Kronbichler Kristen C. Lee Emma C. Maley William Tso Christian D. Wettre |
|
Class of 2016 |
Akshitha Adhiyaman Deanna G. Altomara Alexander L. Anesetti Alexandra Beramendi Olivia M. Brand Elizabeth A. Finneran Alastair C. Fisher Kyu Hyun Kim Josephine A. McCurdy William R. Strauch |
|
Class of 2015 |
Jaclyn Benigno Andrew K. Chan Griffin Charyn Emma C. Corless Swetha Cuddapah Thomas M. Galow Thomas W. Kessler Ashley Y. Kim Eric H. Kim William M. Lee Jake M. Levenson Sara J. Zaat |