Two-Thirds in Line for National Merit Scholarships Boys

Nearly two-thirds of this year’s National Merit Scholarship semifinalists are boys, according to a report today that blamed sex bias in the standardized Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test on which the awards are based.

An estimated 62.9% of the semifinalists in 1989 are boys, according to the third annual analysis of the national awards conducted by FairTest, a Cambridge, Mass.-based research group that has frequently criticized standardized testing.

Thirty-one percent of this year’s semifinalists are girls, according to the state-by-state analysis of first names. The genders of the remaining 6% could not be determined from their names.

The group reached similar findings in two previous surveys. In 1987-88, it found that 60.1% of merit scholars were boys, and in 1986-87, 61% were boys.