Fairfax County Public Schools announced on Apr. 6 that 244 students from 18 of its schools have been named as finalists by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation for the class of 2026. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, which also serves as the Governor’s Regional School for Northern Virginia, has the highest number with 105 finalists.
All of these students are now eligible to compete for nearly $26 million in National Merit Scholarship awards this spring. In total, there are 6,930 scholarships available nationwide. Finalists were selected from semifinalists based on high academic achievement and other criteria, including a recommendation from a school official.
The list of Fairfax County Public Schools’ National Merit finalists includes students from Centreville, Chantilly, Edison, Fairfax, Falls Church, Herndon, Lake Braddock Secondary School, Langley, Madison, Marshall, McLean, Oakton, South Lakes High School and several others. The full roster features names such as Daniel Ahn (Centreville), Carrie Chia (Chantilly), Malyha Bashar (Edison), Rohan Desai (Fairfax), Jayden Nguyen (Falls Church), Nina Whale (Herndon), Jack Doan (Lake Braddock) and many more.
More than 15,000 high school seniors across the country were recognized as National Merit Scholarship finalists for this year. Over 1.3 million juniors entered the program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test in their junior year.
Three types of scholarships will be awarded: $2,500 scholarships funded by National Merit itself; corporate-sponsored scholarships; and college-sponsored scholarships. Winners will begin to be announced starting in April.
An earlier version of this release omitted some student names due to a clerical error but has since been updated.