Fountain Hills High School senior Dylan Northern has been named a National Merit Scholarship finalist.

Each school year, 50,000 National Merit semi-finalists are selected in September based on their high performance level taking the PSAT. From that number, about 15,000 finalists are named based on their continued success taking the SAT exam.

A high academic honor, only a fraction of students are named National Merit finalists, opening up scholarship opportunities at many universities across the country. After being named a semi-finalist earlier this year, FHHS student Dylan Northern finds himself among those ranks.

“Your PSAT score could get you to honorable mention status, but you need to perform just as well on the SAT in order to be named to finalist status,” Northern explained.

According to the National Merit Scholarship Program, the selection process of some 8,000 Merit Scholarship winners from the finalist group is currently underway.

“In March, NMSC will begin mailing scholarship offers to winners,” reads a statement from the organization. “All finalists will be considered for national Merit Scholarships to be offered in 2014.”

Northern said that the selection process is based on a wide variety of criteria, many of which are awarded by universities on an individual basis.

“UofA, for instance, offers a scholarship to any National Merit finalist,” Northern continued. “So, if I went to UofA, I would be a National Merit winner.”

Right now, though, Northern said he’s still keeping his options open, and Northern Arizona University is one of his top picks.

“I like the environment up there,” Northern said.

“I plan to major in electrical engineering. NAU doesn’t offer a National Merit scholarship, but I’m negotiating with them right now to see if they can offer anything for it.”

Northern said he “felt pretty good” about his performance on the PSAT, but he did not expect to be named a finalist, as it is an honor reserved for the top half of a percent of students in the country.

“It was pretty exciting to find out I had been selected,” he continued. “[High School Principal] Mr. Brennan came into my class and made the announcement, so it was kind of a surprise.”

This school year, Northern said the majority of his free time has been dedicated to the local Robotics Club, which recently took top honors at the state competition and will be competing in the World Championships on April 23 in Anaheim.

“I’m also in National Honor Society,” Northern added. “But other than that, I'm not involved in much else because of how much time robotics takes up. At home I might play games or work on other robotics stuff...Things like that.”

When it comes to being a National Merit finalist, Northern said he’s very proud of the honor.

“I'm proud of myself for doing well and doing something that's going to help pay for college,” Northern said. “There are a lot of scholarships for other achievements or being in clubs and things like that but, with National Merit, I basically took a test and did well enough to get a scholarship. It’s pretty great.”

Brennan agrees.

“We’re very proud of Dylan and his accomplishments both on this particular instance, as well as his leadership in the science department,” Brennan said. “It’s a great honor for the school, collectively, and as well for him, individually.”