2 EP students among National Merit Scholarship winners

Class of 2024 high school graduates Robert “RJ” Mattson and Brian Shi have each been named a winner of one of 3,700 National Merit Scholarships financed by colleges and universities, bringing Eden Prairie’s total count of National Merit Scholars to six for this year’s cohort.

Mattson is a Class of 2024 Minnetonka High School (MHS) graduate who lives in Eden Prairie. He was awarded a college-sponsored scholarship from the University of Alabama (UA), where he plans to study business.

National Merit Scholarship winners at the University of Alabama receive tuition for up to five years or 10 semesters for degree-seeking undergraduate and graduate or law studies; four years of undergraduate on-campus housing; a $3,500 per year undergraduate supplemental scholarship for four years; a $2,000 one-time allowance for use in research or international study (after completing one year of study at UA); and a $500 per year book scholarship for four years.

Shi is an Eden Prairie High School (EPHS) graduate from the Class of 2024. He was awarded a college-sponsored scholarship from the University of Southern California (USC), where he plans to study physics and computer science with a potential career field of software engineering. National Merit winners at USC are awarded half-tuition scholarships after going through a highly selective evaluative process.

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Mattson and Shi’s awards were announced earlier this week when the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) announced over 800 additional winners of National Merit Scholarships financed by colleges and universities. These Merit Scholar designees join more than 2,900 other college-sponsored award recipients who were announced in June.

Officials of each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from among the finalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program who will attend their institution. College-sponsored awards generally provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship; however, some colleges provide significantly more, including up to full-ride scholarships with additional benefits and opportunities.

This year, 149 colleges and universities are sponsoring approximately 3,700 Merit Scholarship awards. Sponsor colleges include 77 private and 72 public institutions located in 42 states and the District of Columbia.

This final group of winners brings the number of 2024 National Merit Scholars to more than 6,900. These distinguished high school graduates will receive scholarships for undergraduate study worth a total of nearly $26 million.

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In addition to college-sponsored awards, two other types of National Merit Scholarships were offered – 2,500 National Merit $2500 Scholarships, for which all finalists competed, and about 770 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who met criteria specified by their grantor organizations.

Mattson and Shi join four other Eden Prairie students as part of this year’s cohort of National Merit Scholars. MHS graduate Anna-Sofia Pedersen and EPHS graduates Sasha Allen, Neha Karri, and Pranav Naranayan were announced as winners earlier this spring.

About the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Competition

This year’s competition for National Merit Scholarships began when high school juniors took the 2022 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

In September 2023, 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 become a finalist, each semifinalist had to complete a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay, describing leadership positions and contributions in school and community activities, showing an outstanding academic record, and being endorsed and recommended by a high school official.

Semifinalists also had to take the SAT or ACT and earn scores that confirmed their performance on the initial qualifying test. From the semifinalist group, over 15,000 attained finalist standing, and about half of the finalists were chosen to receive National Merit Scholarships.

NMSC, a not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance, was founded in 1955 to conduct the National Merit Scholarship Program. Over the past 69 years, approximately 382,000 outstanding young individuals have won National Merit Scholarships worth more than $1.3 billion. The majority of awards offered each year are underwritten by approximately 320 independent corporate and college sponsors that support NMSC’s efforts to recognize scholastically talented youth and encourage the pursuit of academic excellence.