Twenty Alachua County Public School seniors have earned prestigious Semifinalist status in the 2027 National Merit Scholarship program, according to a list released this week by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, which administers the program. That number represents an increase of 25% over the previous year.

Fewer than 1% of the nation’s current high school seniors have earned Semifinalist status.

More than 1.2 million students took the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test as juniors during the last school year, with 16,000 earning semifinalist status based on their performance on that exam.

All of the Semifinalists now have the opportunity to earn Finalist status. In addition to earning high scores on the SAT, they will have to submit applications highlighting their other academic achievements, awards and honors earned, leadership activities, teacher recommendations and an essay.

Alachua County Public Schools’ Semifinalists are:

Buchholz High School: Jubili Bamzai-Wokhlu, William Bigger, Mira Bubenik, Alexander Hughes, Dylan Lamb, Jonathan Lin, and Amy Xiao

Eastside High School: Derek Ai, Ethan Dodds, Neha Gupte, Noah Jang, Jaden Jeng, and Matheus Ribeiro Do Vale;

Gainesville High School: Gabriel Duterte, Navya Goyal, Sigrid Noah, Alejandro Probert, and Anna Russ

Professional Academies Magnet at Loften High School: Aurora Conklin and Evelyn Orsini.