FCPS Produces 43 National Merit Semifinalists

Fayette County Public Schools is boasting nearly four dozen semifinalists in the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program. These students are among some 16,000 outstanding high school seniors who will compete for nearly $26 million in awards next semester!

Bryan Station High School

Edith Ingram

Henry Clay High School

Solomon Corkran

Campbell Fann

Liam Gaddis

Alexander Kelly

Samuel Kotter

Tucker Lee

Lucia Moncayo

Dominick Moreno

Billie Phemister

Frederick Douglass High School

Sayed Damaa

Paul Laurence Dunbar High School

Adeoluwa Adedokun

Kishan Amin

Kara Brown

Benjamin Burch

Isabelle Cramer

Sebastian Creane Herrera

Lauren Crowe

Ayesha Hamid

Taha Hammad

Iman Hussain

Jayden Jeong

Hannah Kang

Avneesh Kudrimoti

Emma Natof

Joseph Owen

Neha Palla

Ernest Powell

Robert Smith

Ahaan Thomas

Caleb Ward

Katherine Zhang

Oliva Zhang

Winston Zhuang

Lafayette High School

Carter Bischoff

Frank Gooding

Marshall Hamblen

Nicholas Knowles

Hudson McCormick

Madden Mehrizi

Lars Myrup

Abram Phelps

Meibelle Wiesmann

High school juniors entered the 2026 competition by taking the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which serves as an initial screening. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing less than 1 percent of seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state and is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors. 

Typically, about 95 percent of semifinalists advance in February, and about half of those finalists ultimately receive scholarships based on their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies. The winner announcements come in four waves from April through July, including awards for corporate-sponsored scholarships, $2,500 National Merit scholarships, and college-sponsored scholarships. 

The National Merit Scholarship Corp., businesses, and higher education institutions underwrite the awards.