Shelton Student Receives College-Sponsored Merit Scholarships

Information via National Merit Scholarship Corporation

SHELTON, CT — The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) on Thursday announced over 3,000 winners of National Merit Scholarships financed by U.S. colleges and universities.

Of those 3,000 recipients, one is a Shelton student, according to a news release form the NMSC.

Malulani Mountcastle, a student of Academy of Our Lady of Mercy at Lauralton Hall in Milford whose probable career field is listed as "undecided," earned a National Merit scholarship from Fordham University.

Officials of each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from among the finalists in the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program who plan to attend their institution.

These awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship.

An additional group of scholars will be announced in July, bringing the total number of college-sponsored Merit Scholarship recipients in the 2023 competition to more than 3,800.

High school juniors entered the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2021 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

Last fall, more than 16,000 semifinalists were named on a state representational basis in numbers proportional to each state’s percentage of the national total of graduating high school seniors.

Semifinalists were the highest-scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than one percent of the nation’s seniors.

To compete for Merit Scholarship awards, semifinalists first had to advance to the finalist level of the competition by fulfilling additional requirements. Each semifinalist was asked to submit a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay and providing information about extracurricular activities, awards, and leadership positions.

Semifinalists also had to have an outstanding academic record, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirmed the qualifying test performance.

From the semifinalist group, over 15,000 met the requirements for finalist standing, and about half of the finalists will be Merit Scholarship winners in 2023.

Thursday's announcement was the third National Merit Scholar release in 2023 by the NMSC.

By the conclusion of this year’s competition, more than 7,140 academic champions will have won National Merit Scholarships worth approximately $28 million.