Eleven Baylor Seniors Named National Merit Semifinalists

Baylor School leads the area with 11 seniors named semifinalists in the 2027 National Merit Scholarship Program, placing them among the nation’s highest-achieving high school students.

To see the list of other local schools, click here. 

Baylor’s National Merit semifinalists are Luke Allen, Ananya Chakraborty, Christopher Farnham, James Chatard, Jack Houston, Avery Levin, Owen McKenna, Elly Wu, William Yao, Max Guo, and Shirley Huang.

The students are among more than 16,000 semifinalists nationwide in the 72nd annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Semifinalists represent less than 1% of U.S. high school seniors and were selected based on their performance on the 2025 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT).

The Baylor students now have an opportunity to advance to finalist standing and compete for approximately 6,700 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $24 million that will be offered in spring 2027. About 95% of semifinalists are expected to advance to finalist status.

To become finalists, semifinalists must meet additional academic and program requirements, including maintaining a strong academic record and completing a detailed scholarship application. Finalists are expected to be announced in February.

The National Merit Scholarship Program was established in 1955 to recognize academically talented U.S. high school students and encourage the pursuit of academic excellence.