National Merit Announces Semifinalists

National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC®) announced the names of more than 16,000 Semifinalists in the 71st annual National Merit Scholarship Program. These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 6,930 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $26 million that will be offered next spring. To be considered for a Merit Scholarship® award, Semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. About 95 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and approximately half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title.

Over 1.3 million juniors in about 20,000 high schools entered the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of Semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. The number of Semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

To become a Finalist, the Semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application, in which they provide information about the Semifinalist’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received. A Semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT® or ACT® scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.

From over 16,000 Semifinalists, more than 15,000 are expected to advance to the Finalist level, and in February they will be notified of this designation. All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from this group of Finalists. Merit Scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference.

Three types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered in the spring of 2026. Every Finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit® $2500 Scholarships that will be awarded on a state-representational basis.

Here are the names of the Semifinalists from Scarsdale and Edgemont:

Scarsdale High School

Hana Coulson
Ryan DeDianous
Victor Dyakin
Jacob Friedland
Hayden Fung
Kate Hubell
Derrick Kuo
Peter Lin
Joyce Liu
Anish Mehta
Daniel Pantchev
Leonardo Pettinelli
Mateo Polak
Jalyn Ryu
Alexander Sharp
Katherine Simpson
Neil Sriram
Gavin Tieng
Manuel Trelles
Santiago Trelles
Adrian Wang
Grace Wu
Benjamin Xiao
Isabel Xie
Sonja Xie
Alina Yang
Sergey Yanovsky
ShuYue Zhang
Daniel Zhu

Edgemont High School
Leah Chan
Tamsin Coulthard
Seren Fowler
Maxwell Ho
Ryan Im
Siddanth Karthik
Serena Ke
Sophia Kumar
Lauren Lee
Eleanor Li
Dylan Ma
Hannah Manasse
Vedika Mandava
Madeline Margulis-Ohnuma
Rohan Patel
Megan Qu
Brinda Roy
Kiera Setness
Ananya Shah
Nia Sun
Sophie Xie