PARKERSBURG — Four students from Wood County are semifinalists in the 71st annual National Merit Scholarship program sponsored by the National Merit Scholarship Corp.

They are Smit A. Babariya of Parkersburg High School, Noah A. Galloway of Parkersburg High School, Lars R. Youngstrom of Parkersburg High School and Carson Rose of Williamstown High School.

They are among 16,000 semifinalists from around the country in the competition for 6,930 National Merit Scholarships worth about $26 million that will be offered next spring.

More than 1.3 million juniors in 20,000 high schools entered the 2026 National Merit

Scholarship Program by taking the 2024 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying

Test, an initial screen of program entrants. The pool of semifinalists is less than 1% of U.S. high school seniors and includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state.

The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

Three types of scholarships will be offered in the spring of 2026. Each finalist will compete for one of 2,500 $2500 Scholarships. About 830 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by 150 corporations and business organizations for finalists who meet their specified criteria, such as children of the grantor’s employees or residents of communities where sponsor plants or offices are located.

In addition, about 150 colleges and universities are expected to finance 3,600 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.

Scholarship winners for 2026 will be announced in four releases from April to July.