On September 8, 2026, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), a non-profit organization that honors the nation’s scholastically gifted students, recognized four Chino Valley Unified School Disrict (CVUSD) high school seniors as Semifinalists in the 72^nd annual National Merit Scholarship Program (NMSP) competition. Matthew Sunarta-McDougall, Michael Sunarta-McDougall, Lakshya Raj, and Lucas Liu earned this prestigious distinction after receiving a qualifying score on their 2025 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) during thier junior year in high school. 

Over 1.2 million juniors across 20,000 high schools entered the 2027 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2025 Preliminary SAT/NMSQT, which served as an initial screening of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. Using the NMSC Selection Index to identify each state’s semifinalist allocation, Matthew, Michael, Lakshya, and Lucas are among approximately 2,172 students selected in the state of California. 

National Merit Scholarship winners of 2027 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join more than 395,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title. Once selected, finalists will have the opportunity to compete for one of 2,500 National Merit Scholarships, valued at $2,500 per award. 

Wishing our CVUSD students the best of luck!