Sept. 12, 2025 – Duval County Public Schools is proud to celebrate our 28 outstanding seniors who have been named 2026 National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists!
These academically gifted students – representing Fletcher, Mandarin, Paxon, Stanton, and Wolfson high schools – are among more than 16,000 semifinalists in the 71st annual National Merit Scholarship Program, chosen from over 1.3 million high school juniors who entered the program by taking the PSAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.
As semifinalists, they now have the opportunity to compete for 6,930 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $26 million.
The next step for our semifinalists is advancing to the finalist stage, which includes an application highlighting their academic success, leadership, and community involvement. Finalists will be announced in February 2026, and scholarship winners will be revealed beginning in April 2026. We are incredibly proud of our students for this remarkable achievement.
See below for the full list of Semifinalists:
Fletcher
Peele, Ethan G.
Prevatt, Anne T.
Mandarin
Koti, Dennis
Rollins, Charlotte M.
Smith, Joshua A.
Paxon
Higgins, Saige G.
Stanton
Alwakeel, Alan M.
Ancha, Karthik
Ashar, Rijul
Das, Aashvi
Dearing, Luke P.
Felix, Carmen
Gadre, Aarohi K.
Johnson, Lindsay M.
Jucker, Edward R.
Krishna, Aayush I.
Leiby, James M.
Menon, Ramsagar
Palakamshetty, Suhaan S.
Pendem, Shreyas
Pulumbarit, Indiana-Jones A.
Sapatla, Samuel D.
Umar, Amina H.
Vanga, Pranavi
Verma, Om
Wolfson
Glasheen, Graham R.
Lee, Amber S.
Mercer, Emerson W.
Okada, Kai E.
Porter-Keefer, Zoe P.