The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) recently announced approximately 16,000 semifinalists in the 66th annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Sixty-eight students from the Cobb County School District made the semifinalist list. 

Walton High School and Wheeler High School accounted for the majority (48) of the semifinalists from Cobb Schools—Walton with 25 students and Wheeler with 23. Other Cobb schools with semifinalists include Allatoona High School, Campbell High School, Hillgrove High School, Kennesaw Mountain High School, Lassiter High School, North Cobb High School, Pope High School, and Sprayberry High School.

Over 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2019 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors and includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. 

National Merit Scholarship winners for 2021 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join more than 353,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title. 

Cobb County School District National Merit Semifinalists: