High school and district administrators were on hand to congratulate Los Alamos High School seniors named 2026 National Merit Semifinalists. Pictured are (back, left to right, Assistant Superintendent Carter Payne, James Thomas, Henry Gans, James Ito, Jasper Carpenter and Principal Eric Ziegler; (front, left to right) Assistant Principal Stan Maschal, Assistant Principal Suzanne Montoya, Alyssa Sun, Anya Seet, Emily Xu, John Kang, Galina Nelson, and Assistant Principal Ryan Finn. (Not pictured, Helena Welch). Courtesy photo
LAPS News:
Ten Los Alamos High School seniors have been named semifinalists in the 71st annual National Merit Scholarship Program. This year’s semifinalists are Jasper Carpenter, Henry Gans, James Ito, John Kang, Galina Nelson, Anya Seet, Alyssa Sun, James Thomas, Helena Welch and Emily Xu.
National Merit Semifinalists and their parents were honored at a luncheon on Wednesday. “We are incredibly proud of our 10 National Merit Semifinalists—their dedication, motivation, and commitment to excellence are an inspiration to our entire school community,” Principal Eric Ziegler said.
These academically talented high school seniors have an 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. About 95 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and approximately half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title.
NMSC, a not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance, was established in 1955 specifically to conduct the annual National Merit Scholarship Program.
Scholarships are underwritten by NMSC with its own funds and by about 300 business organizations, higher education institutions, and individual donors that share NMSC’s goals of honoring the nation’s scholastic champions and encouraging the pursuit of academic excellence.
Over 1.3 million juniors in about 20,000 high schools entered the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of Semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. The number of Semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.
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 approximately 389,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.