See Philadelphia's National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

PHILADELPHIA — Numerous students in Philadelphia have been named semifinalists in the 2026 National Merit Scholarship program.

The students are among 16,000 semifinalists who are in the running 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 about half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar title.

Below are the semifinalists from schools in Philadelphia:

Carver Engineering and Science

• Kingsley K. Nwoko
• Natjaya N. Supattarasakda-Tucke

Central High School

• Irene Hong
• Remi K. Iqbal
• Teo K. Lampson
• Kala Ramji-Nogales
• Thomas Stupak

Germantown Friends School

• Simon Berman
• Linus Chen-Plotkin
• Leo Cook
• Sarah Goldberg
• Garrett Hughes
• Andrew Li
• Liem Luttrell
• Emmet Mullins
• Chenyue Peng
• Pranav Pradeep
• Chloe Rudderow
• Daniel Sandroni
• Reem Telhaoui
• Claire Yu
• Luke Zhong

Homeschool/Online School

• Samuel Cao

Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School

• Tova M. Albert
• Kenrick Chen
• Zoe Chien

New Foundations Charter School

• Matthew Auslander

Northeast High School

• Darren Lin

William Penn Charter School

• Sydney Agosto
• James Kraemer
• Rainer Malhotra

Archbishop Ryan High School

• Fiona Deng

St. Joseph's Preparatory School

• Noah Popp
• Dominic Schalk
• Stanley Sollie

To become a finalist, the semifinalist and a high school official must submit a detailed scholarship application, in which they 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.

From more than 16,000 semifinalists, more than 15,000 are expected to advance to the finalist level, and they will be notified of this designation in February.

All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from this group of finalists.

Merit Scholar designees are selected based on their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference.