How Many National Merit Semifinalists Are There?

Key findings

• Of 1,304,412 entrants in the 2024 program, 16,579 became Semifinalists, which is 1.27% (NMSC). See figure
• Only 44.3% of the 15,733 Finalists won a Merit Scholarship, even though 94.9% of Semifinalists became Finalists (NMSC). See figure
• College-sponsored awards made up 53.5% of the 6,977 Merit Scholarships in 2024 (NMSC). See figure
• Semifinalists per entrant ranged from 0.58% in New Jersey to 5.35% in Utah, because NMSC allocates Semifinalists by graduating seniors, not test takers. See figure
• The University of Florida enrolled 405 Merit Scholar awardees, the most of any of the 276 colleges on NMSC's list. See figure

The National Merit funnel, from entrants to Scholars

Every stage below comes from the 2024 program, the latest year with exact counts in a National Merit Scholarship Corporation annual report (NMSC). Students entered by taking the PSAT/NMSQT as juniors in October 2022 and learned about scholarships in spring and summer 2024.

Two things trip people up. First, Commended and Semifinalist are parallel groups inside the high scorers, not steps in a row: about two thirds of high scorers were Commended and stopped there, and the rest became Semifinalists. Second, the biggest drop after the cutoff comes at the last step. Almost every Semifinalist became a Finalist, but only 44.3% of Finalists won a Merit Scholarship. To see where your own score lands against a state cutoff, try the National Merit calculator, and for how qualifying works, see PSAT and National Merit.

So is National Merit the top 1%? Against PSAT/NMSQT entrants, Semifinalists were 1.27% in 2024. The "less than 1%" line NMSC uses (NMSC) divides by all U.S. high school seniors, a bigger group that includes students who never took the test.

Merit Scholarships by type, and the odds a Finalist wins

NMSC reported 6,977 Merit Scholarship winners worth $25,600,000 in the 2024 program, plus 729 Special Scholarships for students who were not Finalists (NMSC). Here is how those awards split.

College-sponsored awards were the largest group at 53.5% of Merit Scholarships, funded by 141 colleges. The National Merit $2500 awards were 35.8%, and corporate awards were 10.7%, funded by 149 corporate sponsors, which also fund the 729 Special Scholarships (NMSC).

Read the "share of Finalists" column with care. Every Finalist competes for a National Merit $2500 Scholarship, so 15.9% is a fair overall odds figure, though these awards are allocated by state, so odds vary by state. Corporate awards go only to Finalists who meet a sponsor's rules, such as being an employee's child, and college awards go only to Finalists who enroll at a sponsoring college. For those two, the overall share is not the odds any one student faces.

Semifinalists per state, and why the rates vary

NMSC sets Semifinalist numbers by state, in proportion to each state's share of graduating seniors (NMSC). It does not use the number of test takers. That is why Semifinalists per entrant swing so widely: in 2024 they ranged from 0.58% in New Jersey to 5.35% in Utah (NMSC). States where fewer juniors take the PSAT/NMSQT tend to show higher rates, so a high rate reflects participation more than student strength. NMSC itself says the program does not measure the quality or effectiveness of education within a school, system, or state.

NMSC's own warning: using numbers of Semifinalists to compare high schools, educational systems, or states will result in erroneous conclusions (NMSC).

The full table below lists entrants, Commended Students and Semifinalists for every state, the District of Columbia and NMSC's other selection units. The rows add up exactly to the national totals of 1,304,412 entrants, 36,107 Commended Students and 16,579 Semifinalists. Four states show 0 Commended Students as printed in the report: New Mexico, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming. That is not an error. For the class of 2024, each of those states had a Semifinalist cutoff of 207, the same as the national Commended level, so every high scorer there became a Semifinalist (Compass Education Group). Your state's cutoff matters more than its rate; the calculator compares a Selection Index to state cutoffs.

Colleges enrolling the most National Merit Scholars

NMSC lists every college that enrolled a 2024 Merit Scholar: 276 institutions, 152 private and 124 public (NMSC). Public colleges enrolled 3,866 of the winners, or 55.4%. The 24 colleges in the table below enrolled 3,694 of them, 52.9% of the total.

The top of the list is mostly schools that pay for their own Merit Scholarships. The University of Florida enrolled 405 awardees, 338 of them on college-sponsored awards. Purdue, Texas A&M, Alabama, Tulsa and UT Dallas follow the same pattern. MIT, Stanford, Georgia Tech, UT Austin, Duke, Berkeley and the Ivy League schools in the list sponsor none, so their winners hold National Merit $2500 or corporate awards.

Latest numbers: the 2025, 2026 and 2027 programs

Exact counts only appear in NMSC's annual report, so the newer programs are rounded figures from NMSC press releases.

• 2025 program (PSAT/NMSQT taken in 2023): over 1,300,000 juniors entered and more than 16,000 were named Semifinalists in September 2024 (NMSC, archived). Over 15,000 met Finalist requirements, and more than 6,930 won National Merit Scholarships worth approximately $26,000,000, including 2,500 National Merit $2500 Scholarships, about 830 corporate-sponsored awards from about 124 businesses, and some 3,600 college-sponsored awards announced that summer (NMSC, archived; NMSC, archived). NMSC has taken these 2025 releases off its site; the copies above are from the Internet Archive.
• 2026 program (PSAT/NMSQT taken in 2024): over 1,300,000 juniors entered (NMSC), more than 16,000 were named Semifinalists, and over 15,000 became Finalists. About 6,700 won National Merit Scholarships worth approximately $24,000,000, including 2,500 National Merit $2500 Scholarships (NMSC), about 700 corporate-sponsored awards from about 115 businesses (NMSC), and about 3,500 college-sponsored awards from 138 colleges (NMSC).
• 2027 program (PSAT/NMSQT taken in 2025): NMSC named more than 16,000 Semifinalists in September 2026 and expects more than 15,000 Finalists, about 6,700 scholarships worth approximately $24,000,000, 2,500 National Merit $2500 Scholarships, about 700 corporate awards and about 3,500 college-sponsored awards (NMSC). NMSC's rounded figures (more than 16,000 Semifinalists, more than 1,200,000 entrants) are in line with the exact 2024 rate of 1.27%, but because both are lower bounds they can't pin down an exact 2027 share.

Semifinalists then go on to need SAT or ACT scores that confirm their PSAT/NMSQT result; PSAT to SAT shows how the two scores line up.

Where NMSC's numbers disagree

• 2,500 or 2,501 National Merit $2500 awards? The 2023-24 annual report says 2,500 National Merit $2500 Scholarships were offered in 2024. But its own totals imply 2,501: 6,977 Merit Scholarships minus 745 corporate and 3,731 college awards leaves 2,501, and the report's funding summary credits NMSC with 2,501 awards (NMSC). We show 2,500, the figure NMSC states, and note the one-award gap.
• 1,200,000 or 1,300,000 entrants in the 2027 program? The September 2026 Semifinalist release says over 1,200,000 juniors entered (NMSC). NMSC's Semifinalist information leaflet for the same program says over 1,300,000 entrants (NMSC leaflet). Both are "over" figures, so "more than 1,200,000" is true under either. The 2026 program release also used 1,300,000, so the leaflet may carry over the earlier wording.
• 16,000 or 17,000 Semifinalists? Compass Education Group, which compiles state lists, says "In the Class of 2026, there were more than 41,000 Commended Students and just over 17,000 Semifinalists," and labels its state table approximate (Compass). NMSC's own release for that program says "more than 16,000" (NMSC). Both can be true, since NMSC's figure is a lower bound. Exact counts appear only in NMSC's annual report, which so far covers the 2024 program.

Entrants, Commended Students and Semifinalists by state, 2024 program

Source: NMSC 2023-24 Annual Report (NMSC). Semifinalists per entrant computed by TutoringForSat.com. Download this table (CSV)

Top 24 colleges by 2024 Merit Scholar awardees

Source: NMSC 2023-24 Annual Report (NMSC). "None" means the college does not sponsor Merit Scholarships. Download this table (CSV)

All figures on this page

Each row has its own link (for example national-merit-statistics.html#F1), so you can point to one exact figure.

Download this data (CSV)

Methodology and limitations

All figures come from National Merit Scholarship Corporation documents. Exact 2024 program counts, the state table and the college list come from the NMSC 2023-24 Annual Report (NMSC), which was still the newest annual report on nationalmerit.org when this page was checked. The 2026 and 2027 figures come from NMSC press releases and NMSC's 2027 Semifinalist leaflet, and keep NMSC's wording such as "about" and "more than".

Computed figures: each share of entrants is the stage count divided by 1,304,412 entrants. Step rates divide each stage by the stage before it (Commended and Semifinalists by high scorers). The odds a Finalist won each award type are that type's award count divided by 15,733 Finalists. Semifinalists per entrant for each state are that state's Semifinalists divided by its entrants. The college share is the sum of the 24 listed colleges divided by 6,977 Merit Scholars.

Checks: the state rows add up exactly to the report's totals, and the full college list adds up to 6,977 Merit Scholars and 3,731 college-sponsored awards. Limitations: entrants means juniors who met program entry rules, not every PSAT taker; dollar totals mix one-time and multi-year awards; NMSC's corporate dollar figure covers both corporate Merit and Special Scholarships; and NMSC warns against comparing states by Semifinalist counts.

NMSC publishes exact counts in its annual report and rounded figures in September Semifinalist and spring scholarship releases; this page is rechecked after each of those releases.

How to cite this page

Copy this line, or link to a single figure with its row link from the table above.

How Many National Merit Semifinalists Are There? TutoringForSat.com. Last updated October 8, 2026. https://tutoringforsat.com/national-merit-statistics.html