Kentridge High’s Owen Unger wins National Merit Scholarship

Kentridge High School’s Owen Unger is a winner of a National Merit Scholarship.

Unger is one of more than 2,900 winners of National Merit Scholarships financed by U.S. colleges and universities, according to a June 4 press release from Illinois-based National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Officials of each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from among the finalists in the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program who plan to attend their institution.

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

Unger will seek a probable career field of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas, home to more than 30,000 students in the heart of North Texas, according to the press release.

UT Dallas, which is in Richardson, Texas, about 15 miles from Dallas, offers rigorous academic programs with curricula serving a variety of undergraduate and graduate student interests, according to National Merit. With seven schools offering more than 140 undergraduate and graduate programs, plus professional certificates and fast-track programs, UT Dallas also is classified as a Carnegie R1 doctoral institution of very high research activity.

This marks the third National Merit Scholar release in 2025 by National Merit Scholarship Corporation. The group named recipients of corporate-sponsored awards on April 23 and winners of National Merit $2,500 Scholarships on May 7.

Additional recipients of college-sponsored awards will be announced on July 14. By the conclusion of this year’s competition, more than 6,930 academic champions will have won National Merit Scholarships worth approximately $26 million.

High school juniors entered the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2023 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants.