September 11, 2025—For the 71st year, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC®) announced its semifinalists for its scholarship program.
Out of the more than 16,000 high school seniors selected, dozens come from Cobb Schools.
In fact, 65 Cobb Students are still in the running for their share of scholarships worth nearly $26 million that will be offered next spring, which can help set up these students with financial stability as they embark on their next chapter of education.
Cobb students from Campbell, Harrison, Hillgrove, Kennesaw Mountain, Lassiter, Pope, Walton, and Wheeler high schools earned were the recognition. These students represent a group of some of the highest-scoring seniors in all of Georgia, and less than one percent of all seniors in the country.
This means that those selected are in a rare, accomplished group not just in Cobb Schools, but across the entire U.S.
About 95 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and approximately half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title, according to NMSC.
National Merit Scholarship winners of 2026 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join approximately 389,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.
Campbell High School
- Owen Alexander
- Krishna Anand
- Kathrynn Benninger
- Jack Herbert
- Sanvi Mathan
- Patil Amulya
- Jacob Podolski
- Gavi Surden
Harrison High School
- Payton Baker
- Eugene Kang
- Emma Praser
Hillgrove High School
- Adaku Okeh
- George Wu
Kennesaw Mountain High School
- Gheneruno Ekuerhare
- Dheeraj Kondragunta
- Mahika Mamidipalli
- Everett Pounds
- Sarah Sadegh
- Ishaan Saini
Lassiter High School
- Lucy Conway
- Carter Kopp
- Riley Sullivan
- Alina Zhu
Pope High School
- Kenneth Kim
- Ishaan Marwaha
- Ekansh Singh
- Nyla Yarbrough
Walton High School
- Aayushmann Bhattacharyya
- Anna Isabelle Cerqueira Perman
- Li-Yen Chou
- Sean J. Dalton
- Thomas Ellison
- Cole Jamison
- Maxim Le-Tu
- Jung Woo Lee
- Jacob Lembeck
- Aditya Manabala
- Aashrith Muppalla
- Benjamin Norman
- Dev Patel
- Christina Philip
- Shinjon Rafique
- Jeremiah Raj
- Ameen Sayeed
- Aubrey Seay
- Anika Thatte
- Vishruthi Thiyagarajan
- Logan Wicks
- Alena S. Wolfe-Tham
- Jerry Xu
- Anna Yang
Wheeler High School
- Samuel Grouchnikov
- Maddic Jordan
- Thilo Kalbarga
- Nathan Lawson
- John Leith
- Madelyn McGurk
- Krish Patel
- Ananya Rajagopalan
- Ritvik Ranjan
- Mythili Shah
- Vidya Sinha
- Ezekiel Skeene
- Jacob Thottungal
- Dillan Vuong
