Twenty-one Greenwich students earned spots among the nation's roughly 16,000 National Merit Scholarship semifinalists, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced Wednesday, Sept. 9.

The students come from four schools. Greenwich High School leads with 15 semifinalists, followed by Greenwich Academy with three, Brunswick School with two and Greenwich Country Day School with one.

The semifinalists were drawn from more than 1.2 million juniors nationwide who took the 2025 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test to enter the 2027 National Merit Scholarship Program. Fewer than 1% of U.S. high school seniors made the cut, according to Patch, which first reported the local names.

The Greenwich High School semifinalists are William L. Dozier, Rhea R. Fan, Amelia L. Foell, Hiroya Karube, Youhan A. Liang, Dane M. Paulson, Ellie A. Podoshev, Edward M. Puskar, Kaitlyn Qin, Angelina S. Song, Isaac C. Southworth, Nora E. Stern, Lelin Tsai, Benjamin S. Varghese and Karolina Zientek.

Greenwich Academy's semifinalists are Talia Bock, Abigail Kesmodel and Emma Mao. Brunswick School's are Lucio Costantini and George Wang. Greenwich Country Day School's sole semifinalist is Shephard O'Keeffe.

The program is in its 72nd year.

GHS also earned the No. 2 ranking in Connecticut and No. 194 nationally in the U.S. News & World Report 2026–27 Best High Schools list in August, scoring 98.92 out of 100, according to Patch.

Brunswick has recent National Merit success as well. In the prior year's competition, seniors Pierce Crosby and Max Lanson won National Merit Scholarships and were headed to Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania, according to Brunswick's website.

To advance to finalist status, each semifinalist and a school official must submit an application covering academic records, extracurricular activities, leadership, employment and honors. Students must also write an essay and post SAT or ACT scores that confirm their earlier PSAT performance.

More than 15,000 of the roughly 16,000 semifinalists nationally are expected to reach finalist status in February 2027. Three types of scholarships will follow in spring 2027: 2,500 National Merit Scholarships worth $2,500 each awarded by state, about 700 corporate-sponsored awards and roughly 3,500 college-sponsored awards. Winners will be announced in four rounds between April and July 2027.