Sixteen Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS) seniors have earned semifinalist status in the 2026 National Merit Scholarship program, according to a list released this week by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.
According to an ACPS press release, less than 1% of current high school seniors earned that status this year.
Roughly 1.3 million students completed the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test during their junior year, with 16,000 earning semifinalist status based on their test results.
All the semifinalists will have the chance to earn finalist status. Along with earning high SAT scores, these students will need to submit applications highlighting their other academic achievements, awards and honors earned, leadership activities, teacher recommendations and an essay.
A total of 19 ACPS students were named 2025 National Merit Program finalists earlier this year.
There are five semifinalists from Buchholz High School, five from Gainesville High School, four from Eastside High School and one each at Santa Fe High School and the Professional Academies Magnet at Loften High School. The names of the semifinalists are listed below.
Buchholz: Annika Caedington, Pranay Gadikota, Shailey Karri, Evan Rotchford and Keith Zheng.
Gainesville: Rowan Archer, Lina Dos Santos, Madeleine Goodrich, Irma Impink and Elizabeth Rant.
Eastside: Francheska Melendez, Irma Rahman, Juhyung Seong and Miles Smith.
Santa Fe: Robert Hu.
Professional Academies Magnet at Loften High School: Logan Rockwell.