Eight Canadian County high school seniors make list
Three Yukon students have been named National Merit semifinalists.
Honorees are Ava Honn and Abigail Zachariah of Yukon High School and Jack Deering of Southwest Covenant High School.
The 2026 semifinalist list, released Sept. 10 by the National Merit Scholarship Corp., includes four Yukon-area students who attend Mustang High School – Andrew Drabenstot, Jackson Fogt, Angelina Pham, and Avery Vascellaro.
Piedmont High School also has a National Merit semifinalist – James T. Durst.
More than 16,000 semifinalists were named in the 71st annual National Merit Scholarship Program.
These academically talented high school seniors have the 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.
Some 95% of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing. About half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.
More than 1.3 million juniors in about 20,000 American high schools entered the 2026 scholarship program by taking the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, or PSAT/NMSQT.
The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than 1% of American high school seniors, including the highest-scoring entrants in each state.
Semifinalists and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application to become a finalist. They will 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.
More than 15,000 will advance to the finalist level, with three types of National Merit Scholarships offered in spring 2026.
This will include 2,500 National Merit $2,500 Scholarships, about 830 corporate-sponsored awards and about 150 college-sponsored awards.
These scholarship recipients will join about 389,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.
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