Forty-six Sarasota County seniors earned spots as semifinalists in the 2027 National Merit Scholarship Program, putting them in the running for a share of roughly $24 million in scholarships.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced the semifinalists Sept. 9. The students represent less than 1% of U.S. high school seniors, qualifying through top scores on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported.

Pine View School Leads Local Semifinalists

Seven schools are represented. Pine View School in Osprey led with 35 semifinalists. Sarasota High School placed four, Cardinal Mooney High School and Venice High School each placed two, and Booker High School, Riverview High School and Suncoast Polytechnical High School each placed one.

Principal Points to Depth of Senior Class

Principal Stephen Covert pointed to the depth of Pine View's senior class in an Aug. 26 report by WWSB on the school's No. 1 Florida ranking. "21% of the senior class is a national merit semifinalist, which is just amazing," Covert said at the time.

What It Takes to Become a Finalist

The program awards about 6,700 scholarships each year. About 95% of semifinalists are expected to reach finalist standing, according to the Herald-Tribune. Roughly half of finalists win a scholarship.

To advance, students must submit a scholarship application, maintain strong grades, earn qualifying SAT or ACT scores, write an essay and receive a recommendation from a school official.

Full List of Local Semifinalists by School

Pine View School (35): Neil Acharya, Madeleine Arsenault, Andrew Ashby, Brady Bartram, Aadi Bhensdadia, Nathan Bowden, Jack Brion, Ying Kai Deng, Ana Easter, Liliana Fornal, Jettson Goberville, Navleen Grewal, Nidhi Gurram, Sophia Lander, Yoojeong Lee, Vivienne Lieberman, Megan Ma, Zhendi Ma, Ruoming Mao, Shanthi Marmash, Ciaran McVey, Sarayu Mukthapuram, Timothy Nesanelis, Om Patel, Aden Phung, Gabriella Pina, Jakob Roche, Sam Roy, Selena Shen, Madison Van Leeuwen, Clark Walkup, Rafael Wasserman, Davis Wold, Harry Xu and Henry Yemofio.

Sarasota High School (4): Jack Greenwell, Ethan Hall, Vivian Purcell and Caroline Svenson.

Cardinal Mooney High School (2): Jack D. Fiskness and Jolie P. Pastorick.

Venice High School (2): Keith Chen and Megan Cho-Wade.

Booker High School (1): Julian A. Atkins.

Riverview High School (1): Caroline Clissold.

Suncoast Polytechnical High School (1): Ada Oberle.