Four students from Fairfax High School (FHS) are among the semifinalists named by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation for 2025.
All semifinalists are eligible to compete for 6,870 National Merit Scholarship awards worth nearly $26 million, to be awarded in spring 2025. Semifinalists advance to finalist standing in the competition by meeting high academic standards and other requirements including a recommendation from a high school official.
The four FHS student semifinalists are:
Ethan Gertz, Ellie Russell, Kai Stone, Shubha Udipi.
More than 16,000 high school seniors were named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists for 2025. More than 1.3 million juniors entered the 2025 National Merit program by taking the 2023 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which serves as the initial screen of program entrants.
The nationwide pool of semifinalists, which represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors. These determinations are made by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, not FCPS or individual schools.
Three types of Merit Scholarship awards will be offered in 2025: National Merit $2,500 scholarships, corporate-sponsored scholarships, and college-sponsored scholarships.
Merit Scholarship winners will be announced next spring.