Four seniors at The Linsly School in Wheeling have been named Semifinalists in the 70th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.
Rocco D’Aquila of Barnesville, Caroline Higginbottom, of Washington, Dylan Lucas of St. Clairsville and Olivia Rosenthal of Wheeling are the Linsly students named 2025 National Merit Semifinalists.
All four semi-finalists have attended The Linsly School since middle school.
These academically talented high school seniors can now continue in the competition for some 6,870 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $26 million that will be offered next spring.
According to the National Merit Scholarship Program, a semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write a message, and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.
Over 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 (PSAT/NMSQT) as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of Semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. The number of Semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.
According to Linsly’s Director of College Counseling, Mrs. Penny Cunningham, Linsly is included in the U.S. boarding school selection unit for the National Merit Scholarship Program, which puts us in a selection index which is 9 to 14 points higher than any local area schools.
“This is a tremendous honor for our students, not only because of their standardized testing performance, but especially because Linsly is a boarding school which puts us in a more competitive category for the selection process. This means that compared to state standards, Linsly has an even higher bar for students to meet to be selected as semifinalists,” explained Cunningham.
Linsly Head of School, Mr. Justin Zimmerman, also commented.
“I am extremely proud of all of our Linsly students, but am especially proud of these four seniors who have worked so hard to earn the recognition of National Merit Semi-Finalists as a result of their outstanding academic work and performance on standardized testing,” said Mr. Zimmerman.
“While these students clearly have done outstanding academic work to earn this designation, what’s even more impressive is that they have done so in a highly competitive boarding school category while also managing to be involved in athletics, theater, and community service. It is a testament to their hard work and diligence and to the supportive Linsly teachers, coaches, and mentors who have encouraged them to reach their full potential. We congratulate all these Linsly School National Merit Semi-Finalists and wish them luck as they continue through this competition.”
To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, Semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. About 95% of semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and approximately half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship which will be announced beginning in April of 2025 and concluding in July.
