People Newspapers salutes the 2026 National Merit Semifinalists from schools we cover for achieving a status earned by fewer than 1 percent of high school seniors nationwide.
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC®) expects more than 93% of the 16,000 semifinalists nationwide to become finalists and half of finalists to win a National Merit Scholarship. Students will learn in early 2026 whether they are finalists, but NMSC typically doesn’t announce those names to the media.
