Dragon Media /J. Schultz, C. Cashon
On September 10, The National Merit Scholarship Corporation named approximately 16,000 semifinalists in its 71st annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Thirty-two seniors at Carroll Senior High School were recognized from the over 1.3 million juniors from roughly 20,000 high schools entered the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program.
To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, semifinalists must have an outstanding academic record, be recommended by a high school official, achieve strong SAT or ACT scores, and submit a personal essay. Roughly 95% of semifinalists are expected to advance to finalist standing, and about half of all finalists will earn one of the 7,140 National Merit Scholarships, collectively worth nearly $26 million, to be awarded in the spring of 2026.
This year’s semifinalists as noted by Carroll ISD are; Aarav Agarwal, Zoha Askari, Carissa Chandra, Benjamin Conley, Veer Dave, Nita Dutta, Marlee Fraser, Penelope Gerrick, Abigail Graul, Joel Hansen, Bryan He, Hasan Khan, Ryan Kollar, Gavin Li, Justin Lim, Aditi Nagunoori, Danielle Nef, Yueyang Niu, Thomas Paskvan, Isha Ponoth, Mayli Reinke, Eric Revell, Gibran Saleem, Akhil Sanapalavenkata, Aryav Sharma, Nandita Shetty, Gavin Strange, Abhishek Tyagi, Nihitha Veerapalli, Natalie Wang, Vivien Wang and William Zhang. A celebration with the semifinalists and their families was held at Carroll Senior High School this September.
Congratulations to these Dragons and their families.
To learn more about the National Merit Scholarship Program and this year’s semifinalists, visit NationalMerit.org.