The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced on Wednesday that four Culver City High School students made its 2026 list of semifinalists who will now compete for a share of about 6,930 scholarships worth almost $26 million. Winners will be announced nationally between April and July next year. This is the 71st annual competition.
High school juniors entered the 2026 academic competition by taking the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. More than 1.3 million juniors, in about 20,000 high schools, entered the competition by taking the qualifying test. CCHS students Emma Frigola, Rhys E. Johnson, Leo R. Marcus, and Naoki Ono-Lemire were among the highest-scoring students in California, joining the pool of semifinalists who, according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, represent less than 1% of United States high school seniors.
The next step for a semifinalist to become a finalist is to complete the required application that includes their SAT or ACT scores, an essay and a letter of recommendation by a high school official.
Finalists are then chosen on the basis of academic record, their participation in community and school activities, how they have demonstrated leadership ability, employment, awards and honors received.
From the group of about 16,000 semifinalists, more than 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist level.
Students will be notified in February 2026 if they are finalists. All National Merit Scholarship winners are selected from this group of finalists, and about half of those are expected to win a scholarship from three categories.
National Merit breaks out into three types of scholarships. Every finalist competes for one of 2,500 scholarships that are awarded on a state-representational basis. Then, corporate-sponsored scholarships consist of about 830 corporate-sponsored awards to finalists who meet their specified criteria, and finally college-sponsored scholarships will be awarded from 150 colleges and universities to 3,600 awards for finalists who will attend the sponsor’s institution.
The National Merit Scholarship winners, chosen on the basis of accomplishments, skills and potential for college success, are selected from the February finalists group. Winners are notified, on a rolling basis, in 2026 from April to July.
The 2026 scholarship winners join the nearly 389,000 past winners who have earned the title of Merit Scholar.
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