5 Hillsborough HS Students Named 2025 National Merit Semifinalists

HILLSBOROUGH, NJ — Five Hillsborough High School students have been named semi-finalists for the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program. (See the list below)

The semi-finalists were announced on Wednesday, Sept. 11 and include around 16,000 high-school seniors who will go on to compete for the scholarships that will be offered next spring.

According to a press release from the National Merit Scholarship Program, about 95 percent of the semi-finalists will be named as finalists for the scholarship. Of those finalists, about half will win a scholarship.

More than 1.3 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2025 National Merit
Scholarship Program by taking the 2023 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying
Test, which represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors. The number of Semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

HILLSBOROUGH HIGH SCHOOL

• Matthew C. Goldman
• Aliyah Merchant
• Nikhil Shankar
• Nivedha Sundarrajan
• Yu-Rou Yu

To become a Finalist, the semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application, in which they provide information about the semifinalist’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received.

National Merit Scholarship winners of 2025 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July.

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