Sixteen Greenville County Schools students have been identified as semifinalists in the 71st annual National Merit Scholarship Program.

These students, all high school seniors, have an opportunity to continue in the competition. Students across the nation compete for over 6,000 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $26 million that will be offered next spring.

High school juniors entered the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. The pool of semifinalists, representing less than one percent of high school seniors nationwide, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.

There are approximately 16,000 semifinalists nationwide, and about 15,000 of those are expected to advance to the finalist level. Students will be notified if they advance in the competition in February 2026.

Here is the list of semifinalists in the Greenville County School System:

Eastside High

  • Liao Liao Shi

Fountain Inn High

  • Jack Hamilton

Greenville Sr. High Academy

  • William Schumacher

J.L. Mann High Academy

  • Prathiksha Raguram

  • Rishika Talati

Riverside High

  • Sharon Antony

  • Jeffrey Bao

  • Neil Dembla

  • Tyler Duprel

  • Agastya Gupta

  • Caitlin La

  • Andrew Ning

  • Grace Qin

  • Sashwath Sivaraman

  • James Zhao

Wade Hampton High

  • Katherine Guth

For more information on the Greenville County School System, visit its website.