National Merit Scholarships are sponsored by ETS, the Educational Testing Service. They are considered prestigious and definitely look good in the Academic Honors section of the Common App. To qualify, you must earn an extremely high score on the PSAT. Election is based on a Selection Index which is the sum of the PSAT math score and twice the Reading and Writing scores. The qualifying Selection Index varies from state to state. Approximately 50,000 students annually qualify based on their PSAT scores. Of those, one third becomes semifinalists, and 94% of the semifinalists become finalists who earn a $2500 scholarship.