An additional five students from School District Five have earned a National Merit Scholarship.
Anthony Coniglio, Jr. (Spring Hill High, University of South Carolina), Luke Elgin (Dutch Fork High STEM Honors, University of Texas at Dallas), Athena Kale (Chapin High, University of South Carolina), Dylan Reynolds (Chapin High, Clemson University), and Conner Thatch (Dutch Fork High STEM Honors, University of South Carolina) were part of the third round of National Merit Scholarship award announcements and winners of the college-sponsored Merit Scholarship award.
Officials of each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from among the Finalists in the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program who plan to attend their institution. These awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship. An additional group of Scholars will be announced in July, bringing the total number of college-sponsored Merit Scholarship recipients in the 2026 competition to approximately 3,500.
In May, Vivian Garcia (Chapin High) and Hunter Taylor (Dutch Fork High) were named winners of this year’s National Merit $2,500 Scholarships. The awards to these students were part of the second round of National Merit Scholarship award announcements. In April, Jayden Won (Dutch Fork High STEM Honors, Boeing Scholarship) was named a winner of this year’s National Merit Corporate-Sponsored Scholarships. These scholarships were financed by about 115 corporations, company foundations, and other business organizations.
High school juniors entered the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program when they took the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. Last fall, more than 16,000 Semifinalists were named on a state-representational basis in numbers proportional to each state’s percentage of the national total of graduating high school seniors. Semifinalists were the highest-scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than one percent of the nation’s seniors.
To compete for Merit Scholarship awards, Semifinalists first had to advance to the Finalist level of the competition by fulfilling additional requirements. Each Semifinalist was asked to submit a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay and providing information about extracurricular activities, awards, and leadership positions. Semifinalists also had to have an outstanding academic record, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, and earn SAT® or ACT scores that confirmed the qualifying test performance. From the Semifinalist group, over 15,000 met requirements for Finalist standing, and about half of the Finalists will be Merit Scholarship winners in 2026.
Additional National Merit Scholarship awards will be announced nationwide July 13.
