National Merit Scholarship winners
Editor's Note: This is the last group of National Merit Scholar designees to be announced in 2026 by National Merit Scholarship Corporation. In three spring releases, NMSC announced winners of corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards, National Merit $2,500 Scholarship awards and the first group of college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards.
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced over 750 additional winners of National Merit Scholarships financed by colleges and universities.
These Merit Scholar designees join over 2,500 other college-sponsored award recipients who were announced in June.
Officials of each sponsor college selected their scholarship winners from among the Finalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program who will attend their institution.
College-sponsored awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship.
This year, 138 colleges and universities are sponsoring over 3,250 Merit Scholarship awards. Sponsor colleges include 69 private and 69 public institutions located in 42 states and the District of Columbia.
This final group of winners brings the number of 2026 National Merit Scholars to about 6,500. Among them were:
Payton Baker of Kennesaw, a student at Harrison High School in Kennesaw, and Dillan Vuong of Marietta, a student at Wheeler High School in Marietta, who both won a the National Merit University of Georgia Scholarship. Baker and Vuong's probable career fields are mechanical engineering.
These distinguished high school graduates will receive scholarships for undergraduate study worth a total of nearly $24 million. In addition to college-sponsored awards, two other types of National Merit Scholarships were offered - 2,500 National Merit $2500 Scholarships, for which all Finalists competed, and about 700 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who met criteria specified by their grantor organizations.
For more information, visit www.nationalmerit.org.
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