Portland High School senior Madeline Butters has won a $2,500 National Merit Scholarship, and now is officially a Merit Scholar. She is one of just eight Maine seniors to be awarded that scholarship and among 2,500 Merit Scholars chosen from a nationwide talent pool of more than 15,000 outstanding Finalists in the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program.

National Merit $2,500 Scholarship winners are the Finalists in each state judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills, and potential for success in rigorous college studies. The number of winners named in each state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the nation’s graduating high school seniors.

These Scholars were selected by a committee of college admissions officers and high school counselors, who appraised a substantial amount of information submitted by both the Finalists and their high schools: their academic records, including difficulty level of subjects studied and grades earned; their scores from the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test; contributions and leadership in school and community activities; an essay written by the Finalist; and a recommendation written by a high school official.

Madeline is highly deserving of this honor, said Johannah Burdin, Portland high school counselor. “She’s really one of a kind,” Burdin said. Madeline is the salutatorian of her highly competitive senior class at Portland High School, and plans to attend Vanderbilt University in the fall.

In a statement below, Burdin detailed the many ways that this student is exceptional both in and out of the classroom:

“Joyful, deep, highly intelligent, humble, ambitious, and compassionate are the first words that come to mind to describe the wonderful intellect, scholar, and young leader with a heart of gold, Madeline “Maddie” Butters. She is a top scorer for our math team, loves to problem solve all kinds of problems, and has taken our toughest classes across the curriculum. As a student in class, she is always prepared, always ready to participate thoroughly with evidence of great effort and thought about the class work, and always ready to listen to, collaborate with or help a peer. Maddie values learning so much and is an incredibly hard worker who strives to grow and then master any given material. 

Outside of the classroom, Maddie remains a hard-working, brave and funny powerhouse of a leader for our drama clubs, the math team, the book club she founded and several other activities.  She served as Donkey in “Shrek, the Musical,” last winter, pulling off a funny, silly and sweet Donkey, while creating great chemistry with Shrek’s character and the rest of the cast.  She’s played Mrs. White in “Clue,” Miranda in “The Tempest,” and many different roles for various One Act Festivals and our Shakespeare Club.  Last year, she also led the paint and set crew for the One Acts, and this year she is leading a fundraising effort for new lights for our high school’s stage.  Maddie is a warm, welcoming leader who is an excellent role model and a humble worker bee at the same time. An avid reader in a variety of genres, Maddie founded and led a book club starting in grade 9, which has read and discussed four books a year throughout high school.  For three years, she was the quarterback for a local flag football team, calling and executing plays while creating a great team environment. 

Maddie plans to become a teacher someday, and has embraced experiences that give her insights into the field of education. She hosted an online SAT Math Bootcamp through Schoolhouse World, interned for an after-school program at a local elementary school, and worked as an enthusiastic and busy camp counselor for a full two months at a sleep-away camp in New Hampshire. Maddie is just the kind of young leader you would want as a camp counselor or teacher for the children or teens in your life–she’s a great planner, she’s flexible, kind, funny, responsible, and full of love.”

The National Merit Scholarship Program honors individual students who show exceptional academic ability and potential for success in college. This year’s National Merit Scholarship Program began in October 2023 when high school juniors took the PSAT/NMSQT, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. In September 2024, the highest-scoring participants in each state, representing less than one percent of the nation’s high school seniors, were named Semifinalists on a state-representational basis in the 2025 contest.

Seven PPS students were among just 53 Maine seniors that the program named as Semifinalists: Deering High School students Violet Blum Levine, Anja Machado, and Asa Tussing; and Portland High School students Madeline Butters, Lawrence "Calvin" Foster, Dvora Katz and Alexander Price. This past February, all the students were notified that they were among 15,000 Finalists nationwide, who all had the opportunity to continue in the competition for 6,870 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $26 million offered in 2025 as part of the 70th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.

The National Merit Scholarship winners are being announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and ending in July. Scholarship recipients will join more than 382,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.