National Merit Semifinalist 2024 Illinois National Merit. National merit finalists begin as national merit semifinalists—an honor earned by scoring highly on the psat/nmsqt. Over 1.3 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2025 program by taking the 2023 preliminary sat/national merit scholarship qualifying test,.
Becoming a national merit semifinalist is the first step toward potentially earning a national merit scholarship. Just 16,000 students out of over 1.5.