Eleven students from Lexington-Richland School District Five are semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship program. 

More than 1.3 million juniors across 20,000 high schools entered the scholarship program by participating in the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which acts as an initial screening.

According to a media release, Anthony Coniglio, Luke Elgin, Vivian Garcia, Leo Ha, Athena Kale, Aarusha Kartik, Dylan Reynolds, Hunter Taylor, Conner Thatch, Jayden Won and Elizabeth Yong are the semifinalists. These 11 high school seniors are competing for 6,930 National Merit Scholarships, worth nearly $26 million, that will be offered next spring.

"Congratulations to each of our students who have been recognized as National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists,” Chief of Academics Tina McCaskill said in the release. "The accomplishments of these 11 students demonstrate our district's commitment to academic excellence from our teachers and students. We celebrate with these students and their families and wish them well in the next steps of the program and their senior year."

To proceed to the next round, semifinalists must be endorsed by a high school official, write an essay, take the SAT or ACT and receive scores that confirm their performance on the qualifying tests. Students must additionally be in excellent academic standing, fill out a scholarship application, and include information such as community activities, leadership abilities and awards received from the school.

 In the spring of 2026, three different types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered to finalists. Finalists will compete for 2,500 scholarships, and 830 awards will be provided by 150 corporations and organizations. 

About 150 colleges and universities are expected to finance 3,600 college-sponsored merit scholarship awards for finalists who will attend the sponsoring institution, according to the release.

The winners will be announced from April to July in four nationwide news releases, joining over 389,000 other individuals with a Merit Scholar title. 

In May 2025, Gavin Rittgers, a student at Spring Hill High School, and Skye Veil, a student at Dutch Fork High School, were awarded National Merit Corporate-Sponsored scholarships. 

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation, established in 1955, honors talented young Americans and encourages them to develop their abilities to the fullest.