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Earlier this week, the National Merit Scholarship Program announced that 30 Arlington students are semifinalists in the 71st annual National Merit Scholarship Competition. Semifinalists are the highest scoring entrants in each state and represent less than one percent of the nation’s seniors.
The Arlington students are among the 16,000 semifinalists named nationally. More than 1.3 million students competed when they were juniors by taking the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). These students will have the opportunity to compete for approximately 6,930 Merit Scholarship awards totaling $26 million.
The semifinalists include:
Arlington Tech: Lukian Yuzvenko
H-B Woodlawn: Anna Brodksy, William Eggert, Zachary Gilbreth, Eleanor Mahshie, Abraham Roisman and TuanCuong Vu
Washington-Liberty High School: Owen Anderson, Isabella DeFillippi, Kierna Forman, Gabriel Irizarry, Kedar Kambhampaty, Caroline Lee, Raphael Quarles and Devesh Stansbury and Thomas Thernstrom
Yorktown High School: Sarah Kinzer, Sarah Rafi, Samuel Selinger, Emily Snelbecker and Ronan Vora
In addition, Jacqueline Ake, Breanne Graham, Kyungsup Hwang, Theodore Hwang, Zella Mantler, Bailey Piper, Sophia Stidman, Henry Stievater, and Alaina Szeto who attend Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (in Fairfax), have been named National Merit semifinalists.
* TJHSST is a Governor’s School for Science and Technology located in Fairfax County. The school serves students in Arlington, Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun, and Prince William counties as well as the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church. APS pays the tuition costs for students who attend the school.
Merit Scholar designees must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by the school principal, and earn SAT scores that confirm the student’s earlier qualifying test performance. They also must demonstrate participation and leadership in school and community activities, and exhibit potential for success in rigorous college studies.
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. About 830 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 150 corporations and business organizations for Finalists who meet their specified criteria, such as children of the grantor’s employees or residents of communities where sponsor plants or offices are located. In addition, about 150 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 3,600 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.
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 more than 389,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.
