(From a press release)
The Connelly Foundation recently announced its 2025 Neumann Scholars during a virtual ceremony, surprising 52 academically talented eighth grade students from 35 regional parochial schools with four-year, full scholarships to attend any Philadelphia Archdiocesan high school of their choosing.
Scholarships to 52 eighth grade students across the Philadelphia Archdiocese amount to a $1.9 million commitment from the Connelly Foundation.
Each student will receive a grant for the full high school tuition, currently averaging nearly $9,200 a year, which over four years will amount to approximately $37,000 per student. The scholarships are named for Saint John Neumann, the fourth bishop of Philadelphia, who is credited with founding more than 200 schools in the Archdiocese. Since the program’s inception, the Connelly Foundation has provided over $20 million in high school tuition scholarships to a total of 1,157 Neumann Scholars.
“The Connelly Foundation is pleased to honor and recognize the academic excellence of this year’s 52 Neumann Scholars,” said Tom Riley, President of the Connelly Foundation. “Each year, I’m reminded of how special the Neumann Scholars Program is. It opens doors to make high-quality, values-based Catholic education accessible, providing students the opportunity to grow in knowledge and set them up for future success in higher education and beyond.”
This year, 516 students from 99 parochial schools in the five-county Greater Philadelphia region competed for the scholarships. The standardized test was administered during the week of Sept. 23, 2024. Among the 52 scholarship recipients are the following 12 students from Bucks County:
- Merryn Andrusiewicz, St. Andrew Catholic School
- Jacqueline Annulis, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic School
- Payton Bagley, St. Jude School
- Matthew Lenker, St. Charles Borromeo School
- Luke Loeffler, Holy Trinity School
- Giulianna Masucci, Our Lady of Good Counsel School
- Jacob Parvin, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic School
- Madelyn Pepper, Nativity of Our Lord Catholic School
- Nahum Wolde Yohannes, Holy Trinity School
- Chase Wolstenholme, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic School
- Grace Van Hoof, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic School
- Olivia Zettlemoyer, Holy Family Regional Catholic School
Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic School had the most winners, with four students earning scholarships. Timothy Baillie of Saint Pius X School in Delaware County earned the highest score of all participants. Additionally, seven students from Chester County, seven from Delaware County, 17 from Montgomery County, and nine from Philadelphia County were awarded scholarships. Six students in the 2025 class of Neumann Scholars have siblings who are previous recipients. Of those six students, one student has two older siblings who are current Neumann Scholars and two students are twins who have two siblings, one a current Neumann Scholar and the other a Neumann Scholar graduate.
Launched in 1995, the Neumann Scholars Program identifies scholastically gifted eighth grade students through an independently administered competitive examination. Eligible students needed to achieve a seventh grade Terra Nova standardized total test score of 90 or a cognitive skill index (CSI) score of 120, plus a seventh grade GPA of 92.0 or above. Students also needed to complete an application to indicate scholarship interest.
The 52 students awarded join 124 current Neumann Scholars attending Archdiocese high schools. Since its inception, roughly 1,033 graduates have enjoyed a 100 percent college acceptance rate with more than $220 million offered by colleges and universities in scholarships, 116 students have been National Merit Finalists, two National Merit Semi-Finalists, 233 are National Merit Commended Students, and they boast an average SAT score of 1435.
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Office of Catholic Education (OCE) prides itself on academic achievement with 71 schools awarded the internal Distinguished Instruction acknowledgement in 2024. With the addition of the 2024 cohort, the Blue Ribbon national award status has been awarded 52 times to parish and regional elementary schools in the five-county Archdiocese since the program’s inception in 1982. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia schools are welcoming to all children and family and offer financial help in addition to scholarship program awards.
The Connelly Foundation was founded in 1955 by John and Josephine Connelly. John Connelly achieved remarkable business success as president of Connelly Containers and later Crown Cork and Seal, both manufacturing companies based in Philadelphia. He and his wife Josephine, strongly motivated by their Catholic faith and their love for the Philadelphia region, dedicated their good fortune to helping others. Over the past 67 years the Connelly Foundation has donated over $500 million to nonprofit organizations in the Philadelphia area focusing on education, human services, and the arts. The Connelly Foundation has always placed a particular emphasis on Catholic education, with thousands of Philadelphia-area students having attended Catholic high schools through the foundation’s Neumann Scholars and Josephine C. Connelly scholarship programs.
