More than two dozen students from Santa Clara and Sunnyvale have been named semifinalists in the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program. The announcement was made on Sept. 10 by the National Merit Scholarship Program, marking the 71st year the company has recognized students for their outstanding test scores on the PSAT or NMSQT.
Over 1.3 million juniors in approximately 20,000 high schools nationwide took the Preliminary SAT (PSAT) or National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (NMSQT), which served as the initial screening for program entrants. The pool of semifinalists represents less than 1% of that pool.
Students named as a semifinalist can now apply to become a National Merit Scholarship Finalist, where they will be eligible for nearly 7,000 college scholarships, corporate sponsorships and more worth nearly $26 million.
About 95% of the semifinalists are expected to advance to the finalist standing and approximately half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship.
To become a finalist, students are judged on their academic record, participation in school and community activities, leadership abilities, employment, honors and awards. They must also have letters of recommendation, write an essay and have SAT or ACT scores that confirm their earlier test scores.
The following students from Santa Clara High School, Wilcox High School, Fremont High School and The King’s Academy were recognized as National Merit semifinalists.
Santa Clara High School
- Isabel Antony
- Pranav Iyer
- Sharvil Kulkarni
- Hanav Modasiya
- Ishaan Rout
Adrian C. Wilcox High School
- Kristin Ahn
- Jonathan Herrick
- Sarvesh Madullapalli
- Leela Mathur
- Kosei Tsukamoto
- Mihir Vinnakota
Fremont High School
- Akash Agarwala
- Yash Bhuva
- Raphael Castel Morano
- Allison Chang
- Clara Estan
- Christopher Kao
- Casey Kim
- Ryan Lehto
- Amina Mohiuddeen
- Katherine Park
- Arden Zhang
Homeschool/Online
- Gabriel Aubin
The King’s Academy
- Jacqueline Shan
- Zixin Su
- Karissa Tang
The National Merit finalists will be announced in the spring of 2026, with other scholarships handed out later in the spring and summer.
