Ten Dublin High students named National Merit semifinalists

Ten Dublin High School seniors were named semifinalists in the 2027 National Merit Scholarship Program, the school said in an announcement on its news page.

They are Alexis Aung, Elizabeth Bunn, Baani Gupta, Sanjay Krishnan, Moon Liu, Aarush Munaga, Cole Nothelfer, Nirupa Rao, Diva Rawal and Shreeya Rao Lalam.

The ten are among the more than 16,000 semifinalists named in what the National Merit Scholarship Corporation counts as the 72nd year of the program. Dublin High said the group represents fewer than one percent of the country's high school seniors, and that semifinalists are the highest scorers in each state.

The qualifying test comes a year earlier. About 1.2 million juniors at roughly 20,000 high schools sat the 2025 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, the PSAT/NMSQT, according to the school's announcement. Scores from that sitting decide who reaches the semifinalist round as a senior.

Semifinalists have to meet further requirements to advance to finalist standing, and scholarship winners are chosen from the finalists in the spring of 2027, San Ramon Valley Unified said in its own announcement of the same national release.

That district named 68 semifinalists across its campuses on Sept. 9, so the valley's two largest public high school systems went into the week with more than 75 seniors on the list between them.

For the Dublin ten, the timing lands in the same weeks as early college applications. Semifinalist standing is one of the few academic distinctions that arrives already settled at that point in the senior year.

Dublin High has not said whether it will recognize the students at a campus event.