District Announces 2026 National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

Officials of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) have announced the names of approximately 16,000 Semifinalists in the annual National Merit Scholarship Program. We are proud to announce that we have 21 Semifinalists from our District, with seven from City High, four from Liberty High, and 10 from West High. The following seniors in our District have earned this honor:

City High School:

Miriam Reschly-Krasowski, Lillian Rantanen, Alma Bhandary-Narayanan, Amal Eltayib, Tobiah Collins, Abigail Burns, Philip Berry-Stoelzle

Liberty High School:

Callum Wu, Neala Gillespie, Sophia Jin, Pete Hanson

West High School:

Catherine Xu, Anna Greenlee, Evelyn Kraber, Ellie Chen, Jerry Li, Venelin Kotev, Kobi Nott, Carter Houchins-Witt, Shanza Sami, Edward Li

To be named as National Merit Semifinalists, these seniors scored among the top one percent of students nationwide on the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT).

These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for Merit Scholarship awards that will be offered next spring. To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, Semifinalists must fulfill several requirements and advance to the Finalist level of the competition.

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.

National Merit Scholarship winners of 2026 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join nearly 389,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.