Tyler Legacy High School senior, Shobhit Gupta, recently opened his front door at home to cheerful applause from Principal Dr. Dan Crawford and a lawn full of school administrators who were there to make a surprise announcement. Gupta now joins an elite group of students who represent less than one percent of high school seniors across the country to receive National Merit Scholarship Program Semifinalist honors.
“Although this has been a different type of school year, we could not go without acknowledging this tremendous National Merit Semifinalist accomplishment,” Crawford said. “Tyler Legacy is very proud of him.”
More than 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2019 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®). Students reaching the Semifinals level are those with the highest scores in the state, with the number of Semifinalists in a state being proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.
With plans to major in computer science at either The University of Texas at Austin or Georgia Tech, Gupta says he is excited about the Semifinalist honor. “I am very happy with how I did and am kind of in shock,” Gupta said. “I honestly did not feel that great after the test, but I am very proud of myself.”
For the next step in the scholarship competition, Gupta and all other Semifinalists 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. From the approximately 16,000 Semifinalists, Finalists will be named in February will receive scholarship funds in one of three different scholarship levels.
Congratulations, Shobhit Gupta!