Officials from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation have named Haddonfield Memorial High School senior Alexander Nuckols a finalist in its 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.
More than 1.3 million juniors from about 21,000 U.S. high schools entered the 2024 program by taking the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), an initial screening of entrants.
Named as a semifinalist in the fall, Nuckols became one of the 16,000 academically talented students representing less than 1% of U.S. high-school seniors. Finalists are now competing for nearly $28 million in college scholarship money that will be awarded in the spring.
Nuckols could earn one of three types of scholarships: a $2,500 National Merit scholarship awarded on a state-representational basis, a corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship award for meeting specified criteria, or college-sponsored Merit scholarship awards for finalists to l attend the sponsor institution.
To be a finalist, Nuckols had to fulfill several requirements. He and a school official submitted a detailed scholarship application with information about his academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment and honors and awards received.
Nuckols had to show his academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high-school administrator, write an essay and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirmed his earlier performance on the qualifying test.
