Congratulations to seven Portland Public Schools seniors for having been named 2025 National Merit Finalists by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Those students are 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. Less than 0.4 percent of all high school seniors nationwide receive this recognition of academic achievement and potential.

The seven PPS students were among just 53 Maine seniors that the program named in September of 2024 as Semifinalists in the 2025 contest. This past February, the students were notified that they had made it to the Finalist level. They and all the other academically talented 15,000 Finalists nationwide now have the opportunity to continue in the competition for 6,870 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $26 million that will be offered this spring as part of the 70th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. The National Merit Scholarship Program honors individual students who show exceptional academic ability and potential for success in rigorous college studies.

Three types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered in the spring of 2025. The National Merit Scholarship winners will be 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.