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

About 1.5 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2012 National Merit Scholarship competition when they took the 2010 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants.  In September 2011, nearly 16,000 Semifinalists were designated on a state representational basis, in numbers proportional to each state’s percentage of the nation’s high school graduating seniors. Semifinalists were the highest-scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than one percent of a state’s seniors.

To be considered for a National Merit Scholarship, Semifinalists had to fulfill requirements to advance to Finalist standing. Some 15,000 Semifinalists met Finalist requirements.  By the conclusion of the 2012 program, about 8,300 Finalists will have earned the “Merit Scholar” title and received a total of nearly $35 million in college scholarships.