Photo by Taylor Bright
Spain Park National Merit Scholarships semifinalists, National Recognition for Hispanic Scholars and National Recognition for African-American Scholars gather for a ceremony in the school's library. Pictured left to right: Tracy Li, Emily Njau, Trevor Gakunga, Noah Smith, David Johnson, Carmen Britt, Rebecca Stafford, Sofia Contreras, Michael Allen, Julia Daigle and Xuyang Chen.
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced their semifinalists last month, including 28 from schools local to U.S. 280. The students recognized as semifinalists will continue to compete for 6,870 National Merit Scholarships, worth more than $26 million. Those winners will be announced in the spring.
More than 1.3 million high school juniors from approximately 21,000 schools across the country entered the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the qualifying test.
The pool of semifinalists, representing less than 1% of U.S. high school seniors, comprises the highest-scoring students from each state. The number of semifinalists from each state is determined in proportion to the state’s percentage of the nation’s total graduating seniors.
The following local students have earned their place on the semifinalist list:
Briarwood Christian High School
Mark Houston
Ian Robertson
Oak Mountain High School
Madelyn Bailey
Benjamin Dahle
Tyler Glenn
Eun Song Lee
Ali Najim
Logan Price
Abigail Smith
Spain Park High School
Michael Allen
Carmen Britt
Xuyang Chen
Julia Daigle
David Johnson
Tracy Li
Noah Smith
Rebecca Stafford
Indian Springs School
Nathan J. Albert
Avery T. Biga
Evelyn F. Frohsin
Aviva Goldberg
Ibrahim Hamo
Jihyun Kim
Erik R. Ledvina
Maximilian U. Lizee
Radyn Moradkhani
Syla A. Steinman
Samuel A. White
