The National Merit Scholarship Corporation recently announced the names of more than 16,000 semifinalists in the 72nd annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Among the semifinalists are 11 Ithaca High School (IHS) seniors:
Abraham (Bram) Elia
Daniella Falk
Ada Iyer
Julia Kleinberg
Moshe (Mookie) Lundgren-Lahav
Lucy Park-Hookway
Anya Ross
Ari Saar
Ruixing (Max) Wang
Imri Wolf
Jingying Xu
Over 1.2 million juniors entered the 2027 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2025 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.
Semifinalists now have the opportunity to continue competing for National Merit Scholarships, worth approximately $24 million. The winners will be announced in the spring.
In addition to the semifinalists, 23 IHS students were recognized as Commended Students in the 2027 National Merit Scholarship Program. Recognized for their exceptional academic promise, these students placed among the top 50,000 students who entered the competition based on their 2025 PSAT/NMSQT scores. Although they will not continue in the competition for National Merit Scholarships, the following Commended Students have demonstrated outstanding potential for academic success:
Joseph Barbash
Leanna Barsbay
Liang Cao
Lucia Cerra
Jack Daly
Fintan Flanagan
Giovanni Fortusini
Corey Fowler
Jesse Ge
Luke Hwang
Levi Jirosch
Judah Kischnick
Asher Kolodji
Elsa Leijonhufvud-Ault
Jonah Minas
Zapoleon Moss
Paceyn O'Grady Specht
Emily Ralph
Maxwell Richardson
Avedis Smith
Ezekiel Sopchak
Yen Tran
Cornelia Ye
Congratulations to all of these outstanding scholars!