National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists

Congratulations to the McLean High School seniors named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists! Based on their exceptional performance on the 2025 PSAT/NMSQT, these students have been selected to compete for over 6,900 National Merit Scholarships.

Front Row: Allegra O’Grady, Yunhan Tong, Natalie Wang, Chloe Giglio, Angela Luo, Rebecca Chen, Margaret Farrell, Vasundhara Jagadeesan. Back Row: Sarah Li, Lucas Mao, Samuel Cosentino, Sean Noh, Aaron Lin, Muyang Zhang, Daniel Anglin, Lexin Zhu. Not Pictured: Caroline Su

About the National Merit Scholarship

More than 16,000 high school seniors were named semifinalists for the 2027 National Merit Scholarship Program. More than 1.3 million juniors entered the 2027 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2025 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which serves as the initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, which represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors. These determinations are made by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, not FCPS or individual schools. All semifinalists are eligible to compete for more than 6,900 National Merit Scholarship awards worth nearly $26 million, to be awarded in spring 2027. Semifinalists advance to finalist standing in the competition by meeting high academic standards and other requirements including a recommendation from a high school official.

McLean High School Semifinalists

We are incredibly proud of our students’ hard work and accomplishments! Go Highlanders!

1633 Davidson Rd McLean, VA 22101 | Main Office: 703-714-5700
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