By Sean Kang ‘14

Every year, approximately 3.5 million students nationwide take the PSAT. Of the 1.5 million juniors who take the PSAT, about 50,000 top scorers are selected to qualify for National Merit Scholarship Program recognition. Two-thirds of the qualified students will receive Letters of Commendation, while the remaining 16,000 students will proceed in becoming Semifinalists for the National Merit Scholarship, representing the top one percent of all 11th grade test takers. This year, Sherwood has three Semifinalists, seniors Nicholas Cameron, Jacob Fishbein and Singiti Weerasuriya.

“When I first heard the news from Mr. Gregory in early September, I was really surprised,” said Weerasuriya. “I didn’t really study or prepare much so I was not expecting to make it as a semifinalist, but I was really proud of myself and my parents were too, after they heard the news.”

Also known as the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, the PSAT is a standardized test administered by the College Board and cosponsored by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) in order to prepare students for the SAT reasoning test.

The National Merit Scholarship competition begins in October, when the PSAT is taken nationwide. Eleven months later, in September, 16,000 semifinalists are announced and 15,000 of them will move on to become finalists in February of the following year. The finalists will then go on to compete for about 8,000 National Merit Scholarships totaling nearly $35 million.

Three types of scholarships are offered to the finalists: 2,500 single-payment National Merit $2,500 Scholarships for which all finalists will be considered, 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarships and 4,500 college-sponsored Merit Scholarships, the latter two only being offered to finalists who meet certain requirements. The winners of the National Merit Scholarships are finally announced in March and are named “Merit Scholars.”

When the NMSC selects the winners for the scholarships, it takes many factors into account. GPA, SAT scores, extracurricular activities, leadership experiences, the personal essay and letters of recommendations are all taken into consideration and carefully evaluated.

While all three were aware of the competition for the scholarships, their main reason for taking the PSAT was to evaluate their current skills. Compared to the real SAT, the semifinalists agreed that the PSAT was easier and more straightforward; however, all three still encourage others to take advantage of the test because it is a very beneficial tool.

“It gives you a good idea of what’s up ahead,” said Cameron. “It’s not always accurate but it shows what areas you perform well in and what areas you should improve, so that you can prepare yourself for things like the SAT and college.”