Sarasota County Schools is proud to announce that 33 of its students have been named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. The National Merit Scholarship Program is an academic competition for recognition and college scholarships that began in 1955. Per the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, over 1.3 million juniors in about 20,000 high schools entered the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of National Merit Semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. The number of National Merit Semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors. 

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